Bible Strands
Isaiah 43:24
You have not bought Me sweet cane with your silver, nor satisfied Me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened Me with your sins; you have wearied Me with your iniquities.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Israel, contrasting their ritual compliance with their moral failure. He speaks at the moment of covenant accusation, immediately before promising to blot out their transgressions for His own sake.
The words — קָנִיתָ (ka.Ni.ta) means “you have bought,” and הִרְוִיתָ (hir.vi.Ta) means “you have satisfied” or “induced thirst.” The text states God received neither purchased sweet cane nor satisfying fat from their sacrifices.
The thread — This theme of rejected ritual appears in Isaiah 1:14, where God calls appointed feasts a burden, and Jeremiah 6:20, which declares frankincense and sweet cane useless when offerings are unacceptable.
Why it lands — The passage demands that worship cease when it masks unrepentant sin. It asks the reader to abandon transactional religion and pursue moral fidelity before God.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 7:13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God as well?
- Jeremiah 6:20 What use to Me is frankincense from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please Me.”
- Isaiah 1:14 I hate your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.
- Ezekiel 6:9 Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Psalms 50:9 I have no need for a bull from your stall or goats from your pens,
- Psalms 95:10 For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”
- Isaiah 63:10 But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.
- Malachi 2:13 And this is another thing you do: You cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and groaning, because He no longer regards your offerings or receives them gladly from your hands.
- Exodus 30:7 And Aaron is to burn fragrant incense on it every morning when he tends the lamps.
- Exodus 30:23 “Take the finest spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half that amount (250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant cane,