Isaiah 40:16

וּלְבָנוֹן אֵין דֵּי בָּעֵר וְחַיָּתוֹ אֵין דֵּי עוֹלָה׃

16 Even Lebanon would not be enough for fuel, nor its animals be enough for a burnt offering.

וּלְבָנוֹן אֵין דֵּי בָּעֵר Even Lebanon would not be enough for fuel, Lebanon was the real source of lumber; her massive evergreen forests dominated Canaan's northwest coastline. The Mp note about "Lebanon" indicates that the word prefixed by waw only occurs here and in Zechariah 10:10. The words אֵין דֵּי are really construct nouns: "a lack of sufficiency," followed by the infinitive construct בָּעֵר, "of burning." Another Mp note tells us that אֵין occurs twice in the same verse 16 times. There is no corresponding Mm list, and in fact, the group is somewhat difficult to piece together. It would appear from Mm 1269 that there are exceptions to this group, but cf. Exodus 12:30; Lev. 13:31; Isaiah 21:10; Job 9:10; Psalm 14:1; 14:3; 53:2, 53:4; Prov. 25:28; Eccl. 3:14; Isa. 40:16; 59:16; Jer. 8:19; 8:22; 49:1; Mal. 1:8, all of which have this same Mp reference despite the "Sub loco" note in Psalm 53:4.

וְחַיָּתוֹ אֵין דֵּי עוֹלָה nor its animals be enough for a burnt offering. The "beasts" of the Hivite region of Lebanon (Judges 3:3) would include all the animals of the forests; few commentators attempt to illustrate what this phrase could mean. Perhaps the idea is this: "Imagine all the lumber and even the wildlife thriving in a place as lush as Lebanon--even this would never be enough to truly make an offering worthy of the Lord." This is why the blood of Christ is the only offering possible for our sins. The Semi-Pelagian idea that God reaches out to man, placing faith there, and then man reaches back to God, however pitifully, to complete the journey and accomplish his own salvation, is put to shame by passages like this one and Ephesians 2:8-9: "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship..." (NIV).

דֵּי occurs just six times (Lev. 5:7; 12:8; 25:28; Deut. 15:8; and Is. 40:16 (twice). The Mp note probably protects this reading from the far more common דִּי. Another Mp note tells us that עוֹלָה occurs twice in this book written out plene (cf. Isaiah 61:8).