God Did Not Command Sacrifice!
A Reply To AnswersInGenesis.Org
Preface
Christian fundamentalists wish to conceive there to be no contradictions in the biblical text, but I find it strange that they need a summary of three theories or more to justify this claim, and so, I wonder if they realize this question: “How do they know they’re not just fabricating “valid” interpretations or using exegetical sophism?” I am here to challenge these three claims made by this website.
Refuting the Strictly Limited Time Period Historical View
This theory is definitely a mouthful to express exegetical sophism! I will be italicizing the claims being made by the website, so as to avoid confusion. The passage of Jeremiah 7 says the following:
For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you’” (verse 22).
The first hypothesis is that God deliberately narrowed the timing of what he was declaring through the prophet Jeremiah. Specifically, God was referring to the period when he had just recently led Israel out of Egypt, and when he told them that if they obeyed, he would be their God. In other words, God is saying that from the time of the Exodus until Israel arrived at Sinai, he did not instruct the nation in how to sacrifice to him. This pretty much constrains the timing to Exodus chapters 13–19.
Keep in mind that the Passover had already been eaten before the Israelites left Egypt (Exodus 12), so does not apply to the Jeremiah 7:22 passage. When you look at those chapters in Exodus, you see barely any mention of sacrifice: only a statement by God about redeeming the firstborn in Exodus 13:11 — 15, and this redemption was through either money or breaking the neck of an unclean animal. There was no sacrifice after the drowning of the Egyptian army (Exodus 15) and none recorded in the early wanderings before Sinai (Exodus 16 — 17). Even after the victory over Amalek (Exodus 17) when Moses builds a memorial altar to the Lord (Exodus 17:15), there is no mention of sacrifice. It is not until Jethro, a Midianite priest, comes to see his son-in-law Moses that we see the first burnt sacrifice (Exodus 18:12), and it is offered by Jethro to God.
The problem with this limited time theory is that God did command their fathers (i.e. Moses, Aaron, and the people), which was prior to them being released from Egypt and going to Mount Sinai based on Exodus 3:18, 4:30, and 5:3. For the blogger to solely limit the time duration to the exodus of the Hebrews does not work, because the narrative also says that God did not command their fathers, which is a separate segment from the other segment that mentions the day they were released from Egypt. The book of Jeremiah didn’t just say that God did not command them offerings in the day they were released from Egypt, but also that God did not speak to their fathers concerning sacrifices in general. The blogger limits the sacrificial command to the day they were released from Egypt, but he doesn’t limit God’s command of obedience to that specific day, which demonstrates that God in Jeremiah isn’t limiting the topic of sacrifice and obedience to a specific day.
God, by the utterance of Jeremiah, is basically saying that He never commanded the Hebrews (e.g. Moses and the people) to offer sacrifices akin to how He never gave them a command of sacrifice on the day they left Egypt. It is interesting that whenever God commanded the people to sacrifice, it was always through the mediation of Moses, and not God Himself, yet when God commanded the Ten Commandments, there was no human mediation involved but a direct experience (Exodus 20:1–19). The human mediation being anagogically displayed here seems to indicate that the command of sacrifice was a human interpretation of God, but when God spoke with no mediator of the Ten Commandments before all the people, it was a true revelation of God. Anyway, there’s nothing in Jeremiah 7:22 that suggests that we should limit the command of sacrifice to the day they escaped Egypt. The author of Jeremiah, to support this blogger’s theory, could have said, “I did not speak to your fathers and command them to sacrifice when I brought them out of Egypt,” instead of giving separate segments that could be understood as inclusive timing versus exclusive.
Refuting the Limited Information View
The passages in Exodus 3:18, 4:30, and 5:3 record God telling Moses, and Aaron telling the people, and then Moses and Aaron telling Pharaoh, that God required Israel to offer a sacrifice to him in the wilderness. In Exodus 10:25, Moses even tells Pharaoh that flocks and herds must be taken to sacrifice to God. So clearly Israel had been told that they must sacrifice to God burnt offerings. So is this not a direct contradiction with Jeremiah 7:22?
But when looked at more closely, we notice some contextual passages which solve this apparent contradiction in this view. In Exodus 8:27, Moses tells Pharaoh that they would “sacrifice to the LORD our God as He will command us.” This implies that God had not instructed them on the specifics of the sacrifices they were to offer. Then after we read that Moses and Aaron were requesting animals to take to offer, the very next verse has them telling Pharaoh that “even we do not know with what we must serve the LORD until we arrive there” (Exodus 10:26). So even though the Israelites knew that they would be required to offer sacrifices to God, they did not know the specifics.
So, in this second view, the passage in Jeremiah 7:22 is not a contradiction with these passages. When viewed as Israel not being instructed in the specifics of sacrificing to God, as would be revealed later in Exodus and Leviticus, the passage in Jeremiah basically restates that God did not command Israel concerning how to offer burnt offerings or sacrifices until Sinai.
This limited information theory also suffers issues, because there is nothing in Jeremiah 7:22 where God speaks about the proper manner or valid methodology of the sacrificial service. The blogger’s second proposed theory is also inconsistent, because prior he limited the command of sacrifice only to the day when they escaped Egyptian bondage, yet now, with this new theory, he’s extending the time duration to when Moses and the people were still in bondage to Egypt. God is not concerned over how sacrifices ought to be presented or how worship is to be conducted, as the psalmist says, “For You do not desire 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” (Psalm 51:16–17). He explains that what God truly wants is a humble and repentant spirit, and sacrifices aren’t required by God. “May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar” (verse 18–19). The psalmist is not saying that God will desire sacrifices after given favor, but he is saying that God will tolerate these offerings as long as they practice virtue. If God actually took pleasure in sacrifice, then the psalmist wouldn’t have made the statement that God does not delight in them since the psalmist has explained that God really seeks a humble spirit. The psalmist also says, “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering, you have not required. Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:6–8). The law that the psalmist comes to fulfill is the moral law or obedience to the ethics of God, which is contrasted with the use of offerings.
Refuting the Third View: God Did Not Only Desire External Sacrifice
The third view is that Jeremiah 7:22 is essentially stating what has been said elsewhere in the Old Testament. God commanded sacrifices, but he didn’t require them as mere external acts without an obedient heart. He didn’t institute burnt offerings and sacrifices as ends in and of themselves but as a means for people to express their sorrow over sin, their reliance on God, and their love of him and his statutes.
The use of what has been called the “dialectical negative” adds emphasis to the positive command. This is expressed in certain English translations with the addition of a single word — “I did not merely give them commands . . .” (NET) or “I did not just give them commands . . .” (NIV). Thus, God highlighted that his commands to the Israelites were not primarily about the outward sacrificial system. Rather, from the time that God led them out of Egypt, he stressed how important it was for them to obediently follow him.
This is an interesting argument, but it’s extremely faulty because the original language doesn’t use the Greek term “monon” to mean only or merely, and the Hebrew term “Raq” or “Badad” isn’t used in this context. If the author of Jeremiah wanted to convey an adverb that meant solely or merely, the term “Badad” or “Raq” would have been used. And the Fathers understood this passage in Koine Greek as meaning “I did not command” instead of “I did not just command”. Saint Athanasius, who was a key influential figure in the Early Church, did not fathom the statement in Jeremiah 7:22 as modernists understand it, but said:
“And what does this mean my brethren? For it is right for us to investigate the saying of the prophet, and especially on account of heretics who have turned their mind against the law. By Moses then, God gave commandment respecting sacrifices, and all the book called Leviticus is entirely taken up with the arrangement of these matters, so that He might accept the offerer.
So through the Prophets, He blames him who despised these things, as disobedient to the commandment saying, ‘I have not required these at your hands. Neither did I speak to your fathers respecting sacrifices, nor command them concerning whole burnt-offerings.’
Now it is the opinion of some, that the Scriptures do not agree together, or that God, Who gave the commandment, is false. But there is no disagreement whatever, far from it, neither can the Father, Who is truth, lie; ‘for it is impossible that God should lie Hebrews 6:18,’ as Paul affirms. But all these things are plain to those who rightly consider them, and to those who receive with faith the writings of the law.
Now it appears to me — may God grant, by your prayers, that the remarks I presume to make may not be far from the truth — that not at first were the commandment and the law concerning sacrifices, neither did the mind of God, who gave the law, regard whole burnt-offerings, but those things which were pointed out and prefigured by them. ‘For the law contained a shadow of good things to come.’ And, ‘Those things were appointed until the time of reformation.’
Therefore, the whole law did not treat of sacrifices, though there was in the law a commandment concerning sacrifices, that by means of them it might begin to instruct men and might withdraw them from idols, and bring them near to God, teaching them for that present time.
Therefore neither at the beginning, when God brought the people out of Egypt, did He command them concerning sacrifices or whole burnt-offerings, nor even when they came to mount Sinai. For God is not as man, that He should be careful about these things beforehand; but His commandment was given, that they might know Him Who is truly God, and His Word, and might despise those which are falsely called gods, which are not, but appear in outward show. So He made Himself known to them in that He brought them out of Egypt, and caused them to pass through the Red Sea.
But when they chose to serve Baal, and dared to offer sacrifices to those that have no existence, and forgot the miracles which were wrought in their behalf in Egypt, and thought of returning there again; then indeed, after the law, that commandment concerning sacrifices was ordained as law; so that with their mind, which at one time had meditated on those which are not, they might turn to Him Who is truly God, and learn not, in the first place, to sacrifice, but to turn away their faces from idols, and conform to what God commanded.” — Letter 19, Section 3–4, Athanasius of Alexandria.
It’s interesting that Saint Athanasius doesn’t take the fundamentalist view that God legislated any sacrifice through Moses, instead He did two things: He allowed them to use their customs to sway them away from pagan idolatry, and He inspired the mystical reading behind the customs, but He did not inspire the command or practice of these customs. The Saint acknowledges the narrative that God told Moses to appoint sacrifices, but also acknowledged the teaching of the prophets saying otherwise. He recognizes the contradiction in regard to the letter but he appeals to the mystical reading, which proves he did not believe in contextual (fundamentalist/Protestant) inerrancy but anagogical inerrancy (a view that no traditional Protestant holds).
Athanasius knows he’s going against the plain reading of the Scriptures, which is why he said “Now it appears to me — may God grant, by your prayers, that the remarks I presume to make may not be far from the truth — that not at first were the commandment and the law concerning sacrifices, neither did the mind of God, Who gave the law, regard whole burnt-offerings,” and “Therefore neither at the beginning, when God brought the people out of Egypt, did He command them concerning sacrifices or whole burnt-offerings, nor even when they came to mount Sinai”. He expresses worry among his audience since he is opposing the grammatical reading of the text, which the immature of the faith, according to Origen’s and Gregory’s report of them, hold to as only true (First Principles IV.8–9; Homilies on the Song of Songs Preface).
The blogger quotes “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings,” and he does this to indicate that this third theory is true, but the translation “more than burnt offerings” should be “rather than burnt offerings” due to the the first segment of the sentence having a contrast rather than an adverb serving an inclusive role.
Harmonizing All Three Views
In the three views mentioned above, it is clear that there is no contradiction between Jeremiah 7:22–23 and the passages in Exodus. In fact, it’s entirely possible that to some extent, all three views are in God’s mind as he speaks through Jeremiah to the people of Judah shortly before the Babylonian captivity.
I have already demonstrated that this can’t be so, and that each theory being combined would result in a contradiction to some extent. It is fascinating that none of these theories have any contextual support, but are mostly distortions of the biblical text.
He may have wanted to remind them that he first wanted obedience even before he instituted the sacrificial system, showing Israel and Judah that the heart attitude of repentance needs to precede the physical act of sacrifice — and also and most importantly, that he detested sacrifices that were offered inappropriately. In fact, the last book of the O.T. has an extended passage on this very topic. It is apparent that even to the last of the O.T. prophets, the hypocrisy of man-made outward religiosity (and could we not say the same of many today) was still rampant and repugnant in God’s eyes. I can think of no better way to drive home this thought than to include this thought from the book of Malachi.
He quotes Malachi but the offering that’s being given seems to allude to oppressing the unfortunate and perhaps human sacrifice if possible. God would not have been offended if the Jews ceased their sacrificial works and merely relied on ethics, because God simply does not need sacrifices to forgive sin. Furthermore, Paul says, “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship — and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if God needed anything. Rather, He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else,” and even the early father Barnabas acknowledges that Christ abolished the offerings due to their burdensome, human origin, “These things then Christ abolished in order that the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of necessity, might not have a man-made offering [or sacrifice]” (Acts 17:23–25; Barnabas 2:6). Since God does not change in character and Paul claims that God does not need sacrifice or anything served or built by human hands, then it is reasonable to conclude that God never commanded offerings to the Jews (cf. Hebrews 13:8; Malachi 3:6).
