Bible Synapse
Did God command burnt offerings and sacrifices, or did he not want them?
Hard question · The law of Moses · raised by 3 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
The ram at the priests’ consecration is burned whole as a burnt offering, ‘a sweet savour’ to the Lord.
And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the Lord: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the Lord.
The whole burnt offering is ‘of a sweet savour unto the Lord’.
But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.
God says he did not command the fathers about burnt offerings when he brought them out of Egypt, but commanded, ‘Obey my voice’.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
God is weary of Judah’s sacrifices, feasts and prayers, because their hands are full of blood.
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
God does not need the flesh of bulls; ‘Offer unto God thanksgiving’.
If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:
David says God does not desire sacrifice but “a broken and a contrite heart”; then he looks forward to God being pleased “with burnt offering and whole burnt offering”.
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.
Jesus tells the Pharisees to learn what “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” means.
But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
The objection
Exodus and Leviticus command burnt offerings and call them “a sweet savour unto the Lord”. But Jeremiah says that God did not command the fathers about burnt offerings when he brought them out of Egypt, Isaiah has God say he does not delight in them, and a psalm asks whether God eats the flesh of bulls. David tells God “thou desirest not sacrifice”, and Jesus twice quotes “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”. Did God command sacrifices or not?
The answer
The prophets are not denying that God gave the sacrificial law. Jeremiah himself looks forward to a day when people will come to the temple “bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices” (17:26), and he promises that the Levitical priests will never lack a man “to offer burnt offerings” (33:18). What the prophets reject is sacrifice offered by people living in open sin. Just before, Jeremiah lists the people’s theft, murder, adultery, perjury and Baal worship, and asks whether they will then “come and stand before me in this house” (7:9-10). Isaiah’s charge is the same: “your hands are full of blood” (1:15). He rejects their prayers and Sabbaths too, which God had certainly commanded; God refuses worship from unrepentant hands.
Jeremiah 7:22-23 sets two things side by side in a Hebrew way of speaking, where ‘not this, but that’ can mean ‘not chiefly this, but above all that’, as in “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). The Berean Standard Bible brings this out: “I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices”. The heart of the covenant God made after the exodus was obedience: “Obey my voice, and I will be your God” (Jeremiah 7:23; compare Exodus 19:5). The laws of sacrifice served that covenant and were never a substitute for it. Keil and Delitzsch conclude that Jeremiah’s words deny neither the divine origin of the sacrificial law nor its place in the Sinai legislation. Psalm 50 makes a related point, that God does not need sacrifices as food: “If I were hungry, I would not tell thee” (50:12).
Psalm 51 and the words of Jesus follow the same pattern. David, confessing his sin with Bathsheba, says “thou desirest not sacrifice” (51:16). Gill notes that the law appointed no sacrifice for murder and adultery; what God wanted first was “a broken and a contrite heart” (51:17). Yet the same psalm ends by looking forward to the day when God will “be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering” (51:19). When Jesus quotes Hosea, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7), he is rebuking Pharisees who put ritual before mercy. He is not abolishing the offerings of the law: he told a leper he had healed to “offer the gift that Moses commanded” (Matthew 8:4). Micah asks the same question and gives the same answer: the Lord requires “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:6-8).
Other answers Christians give
Not on that day
Some, such as CARM, stress the time reference: on the day God brought Israel out of Egypt the first thing he required was obedience (Exodus 15:26; 19:5), and the laws of sacrifice followed later at Sinai.
Never for their own sake
Gill takes Jeremiah to mean that sacrifices were not the chief thing commanded, and were never appointed for their own sake; they pointed to Christ, and offered without faith they were worthless.
From the classic commentators
Such an intimation neither denies the divine origin of the Torah of sacrifice in Leviticus, nor discredits its character as a part of the Sinaitic legislation.C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Jeremiah 7, at Bible Hub
These were not the only things the Lord commanded the children of Israel; nor the chief and principal ones; and in comparison of others, of more consequence and moment, were as none at allJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Jeremiah 7 (1746–1763), at Bible Hub
Sources
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Jeremiah 7, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Jeremiah 7, at Bible Hub
- Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary: Isaiah 1, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Psalm 51, at Bible Hub