Later text
For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
For You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You take no pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
Earlier text
He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, so it can be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.
Leviticus 1:4 prescribes hand-laying (סָמַךְ, samakh) on the burnt offering's head to effect כַּפָּרָה (kapparah, "atonement"), establishing the sacrificial mechanism for restoring the sinner's standing before God. Psalm 51:16-17, written from David's post-adultery crisis, declares that God does not delight in זֶבַח (zevach, "sacrifice") or עוֹלָה (olah, "burnt offering"), but instead accepts a "broken and contrite heart" (לֵב נִשְׁבָּר וְנִדְכֶּה). David does not reject the Levitical system but recognizes that no prescribed offering covers his sin of deliberate murder and adultery — the system has limits that only divine mercy can transcend. The contrast exposes a tension between ritual mechanism and heart condition that the Levitical code itself cannot resolve.