50:9 I do not need to take 3 a bull from your household
or goats from your sheepfolds.
50:10 For every wild animal in the forest belongs to me,
as well as the cattle that graze on a thousand hills. 4
50:11 I keep track of 5 every bird in the hills,
and the insects 6 of the field are mine.
50:12 Even if I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and all it contains belong to me.
50:13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls?
Do I drink the blood of goats? 7
1 sn The focus of sin offering “atonement” was purging impurities from the tabernacle (see the note on Lev 1:4).
2 tn Heb “there shall be forgiveness to him” or “it shall be forgiven to him” (KJV similar).
3 tn Or “I will not take.”
4 tn Heb “[the] animals on a thousand hills.” The words “that graze” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The term בְּהֵמוֹה (bÿhemot, “animal”) refers here to cattle (see Ps 104:14).
5 tn Heb “I know.”
6 tn The precise referent of the Hebrew word, which occurs only here and in Ps 80:13, is uncertain. Aramaic, Arabic and Akkadian cognates refer to insects, such as locusts or crickets.
7 tn The rhetorical questions assume an emphatic negative response, “Of course not!”