1 Samuel 15:22

15:22 Then Samuel said,

“Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as much as he does in obedience? ¹ 

Certainly, ²  obedience ³  is better than sacrifice;

paying attention is better than ⁴  the fat of rams.

Psalms 10:8-13

10:8 He waits in ambush near the villages; ⁵ 

in hidden places he kills the innocent.

His eyes look for some unfortunate victim. ⁶ 

10:9 He lies in ambush in a hidden place, like a lion in a thicket; ⁷ 

he lies in ambush, waiting to catch ⁸  the oppressed;

he catches the oppressed ⁹  by pulling in his net. ¹⁰ 

10:10 His victims are crushed and beaten down;

they are trapped in his sturdy nets. ¹¹ 

10:11 He says to himself, ¹² 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ¹³ 

10:12 Rise up, Lord! ¹⁴ 

O God, strike him down! ¹⁵ 

Do not forget the oppressed!

10:13 Why does the wicked man reject God? ¹⁶ 

He says to himself, ¹⁷  “You ¹⁸  will not hold me accountable.” ¹⁹ 

Psalms 50:9

50:9 I do not need to take ²⁰  a bull from your household

or goats from your sheepfolds.

Psalms 51:16

51:16 Certainly ²¹  you do not want a sacrifice, or else I would offer it; ²² 

you do not desire a burnt sacrifice. ²³ 

Isaiah 1:11-15

1:11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?” ²⁴ 

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with ²⁵  burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want. ²⁶ 

1:12 When you enter my presence,

do you actually think I want this –

animals trampling on my courtyards? ²⁷ 

1:13 Do not bring any more meaningless ²⁸  offerings;

I consider your incense detestable! ²⁹ 

You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations,

but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations! ³⁰ 

1:14 I hate your new moon festivals and assemblies;

they are a burden

that I am tired of carrying.

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ³¹ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ³² 

Isaiah 40:16

40:16 Not even Lebanon could supply enough firewood for a sacrifice; ³³ 

its wild animals would not provide enough burnt offerings. ³⁴ 

Jeremiah 7:21-22

7:21 The Lord said to the people of Judah, ³⁵  “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ³⁶  says: ‘You might as well go ahead and add the meat of your burnt offerings to that of the other sacrifices and eat it, too! ³⁷  7:22 Consider this: ³⁸  When I spoke to your ancestors after I brought them out of Egypt, I did not merely give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Hosea 6:6

6:6 For I delight in faithfulness, not simply in sacrifice;

I delight ³⁹  in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings. ⁴⁰ 

Amos 5:22

5:22 Even if you offer me burnt and grain offerings, ⁴¹  I will not be satisfied;

I will not look with favor on your peace offerings of fattened calves. ⁴² 

[15:22]  ¹ tn Heb “as [in] listening to the voice of the Lord.”

[15:22]  ² tn Heb “look.”

[15:22]  ³ tn Heb “listening.”

[15:22]  ⁴ tn The expression “is better” is understood here by ellipsis (see the immediately preceding statement).

[10:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “he sits in the ambush of the villages.”

[10:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “his eyes for an unfortunate person lie hidden.” The language may picture a lion (see v. 9) peering out from its hiding place in anticipation that an unsuspecting victim will soon come strolling along.

[10:9]  ⁷ tn Or “in its den.”

[10:9]  ⁸ tn The verb, which also appears in the next line, occurs only here and in Judg 21:21.

[10:9]  ⁹ tn The singular form is collective (see v. 10) or refers to the typical or representative oppressed individual.

[10:9]  ¹⁰ tn Or “when he [i.e., the wicked man] pulls in his net.”

[10:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he crushes, he is bowed down, and he falls into his strong [ones], [the] unfortunate [ones].” This verse presents several lexical and syntactical difficulties. The first word (יִדְכֶּה, yidekeh) is an otherwise unattested Qal form of the verb דָּכָה (dakhah, “crush”). (The Qere [marginal] form is imperfect; the consonantal text [Kethib] has the perfect with a prefixed conjunction vav [ו].) If the wicked man’s victim is the subject, which seems to be the case (note the two verbs which follow), then the form should be emended to a Niphal (יִדָּכֶה, yiddakheh). The phrase בַּעֲצוּמָיו (ba’atsumayv, “into his strong [ones]”), poses interpretive problems. The preposition -בְּ (bet) follows the verb נָפַל (nafal, “fall”), so it may very well carry the nuance “into” here, with “his strong [ones]” then referring to something into which the oppressed individual falls. Since a net is mentioned in the preceding verse as the instrument used to entrap the victim, it is possible that “strong [ones]” here refers metonymically to the wicked man’s nets or traps. Ps 35:8 refers to a man falling into a net (רֶשֶׁת, reshet), as does Ps 141:10 (where the plural of מִכְמָר [mikhmar, “net”] is used). A hunter’s net (רֶשֶׁת), is associated with snares (פַּח [pakh], מֹקְשִׁים, [moqÿshim]) and ropes (חֲבָלִים, khavalim) in Ps 140:5. The final word in the verse (חֶלְכָּאִים (khelka’im, “unfortunate [ones]”) may be an alternate form of חֵלְכָח (khelkhakh, “unfortunate [one]”; see vv. 8, 14). The Qere (marginal reading) divides the form into two words, חֵיל כָּאִים (khel ka’im, “army/host of disheartened [ones]”). The three verb forms in v. 10 are singular because the representative “oppressed” individual is the grammatical subject (see the singular עָנִי [’aniy] in v. 9).

[10:11]  ¹² tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[10:12]  ¹⁴ sn Rise up, O Lord! The psalmist’s mood changes from lament to petition and confidence.

[10:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “lift up your hand.” Usually the expression “lifting the hand” refers to praying (Pss 28:2; 134:2) or making an oath (Ps 106:26), but here it probably refers to “striking a blow” (see 2 Sam 18:28; 20:21). Note v. 15, where the psalmist asks the Lord to “break the arm of the wicked.” A less likely option is that the psalmist is requesting that the Lord declare by oath his intention to intervene.

[10:13]  ¹⁶ tn The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s outrage that the wicked would have the audacity to disdain God.

[10:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he says in his heart” (see vv. 6, 11). Another option is to understand an ellipsis of the interrogative particle here (cf. the preceding line), “Why does he say in his heart?”

[10:13]  ¹⁸ tn Here the wicked man addresses God directly.

[10:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “you will not seek.” The verb דָרַשׁ (darash, “seek”) is used here in the sense of “seek an accounting.” One could understand the imperfect as generalizing about what is typical and translate, “you do not hold [people] accountable.”

[50:9]  ²⁰ tn Or “I will not take.”

[51:16]  ²¹ tn Or “For.” The translation assumes the particle is asseverative (i.e., emphasizing: “certainly”). (Some translations that consider the particle asseverative leave it untranslated.) If taken as causal or explanatory (“for”, cf. NRSV), the verse would explain why the psalmist is pleading for forgiveness, rather than merely offering a sacrifice.

[51:16]  ²² tn The translation assumes that the cohortative is used in a hypothetical manner in a formally unmarked conditional sentence, “You do not want a sacrifice, should I offer [it]” (cf. NEB). For other examples of cohortatives in the protasis (“if” clause) of a conditional sentence, see GKC 320 §108.e. (It should be noted, however, that GKC understands this particular verse in a different manner. See GKC 320 §108.f, where it is suggested that the cohortative is part of an apodosis with the protasis being suppressed.)

[51:16]  ²³ sn You do not desire a burnt sacrifice. The terminology used in v. 16 does not refer to expiatory sacrifices, but to dedication and communion offerings. This is not a categorical denial of the sacrificial system in general or of the importance of such offerings. The psalmist is talking about his specific situation. Dedication and communion offerings have their proper place in worship (see v. 19), but God requires something more fundamental, a repentant and humble attitude (see v. 17), before these offerings can have real meaning.

[1:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Why to me the multitude of your sacrifices?” The sarcastic rhetorical question suggests that their many sacrifices are of no importance to the Lord. This phrase answers the possible objection that an Israelite could raise in response to God’s indictment: “But we are offering the sacrifices you commanded!”

[1:11]  ²⁵ tn The verb שָׂבַע (sava’, “be satisfied, full”) is often used of eating and/or drinking one’s fill. See BDB 959 s.v. שָׂבַע. Here sacrifices are viewed, in typical ancient Near Eastern fashion, as food for the deity. God here declares that he has eaten and drunk, as it were, his fill.

[1:11]  ²⁶ sn In the chiastic structure of the verse, the verbs at the beginning and end highlight God’s displeasure, while the heaping up of references to animals, fat, and blood in the middle lines hints at why God wants no more of their sacrifices. They have, as it were, piled the food on his table and he needs no more.

[1:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “When you come to appear before me, who requires this from your hand, trampling of my courtyards?” The rhetorical question sarcastically makes the point that God does not require this parade of livestock. The verb “trample” probably refers to the eager worshipers and their sacrificial animals walking around in the temple area.

[1:13]  ²⁸ tn Or “worthless” (NASB, NCV, CEV); KJV, ASV “vain.”

[1:13]  ²⁹ sn Notice some of the other practices that Yahweh regards as “detestable”: homosexuality (Lev 18:22-30; 20:13), idolatry (Deut 7:25; 13:15), human sacrifice (Deut 12:31), eating ritually unclean animals (Deut 14:3-8), sacrificing defective animals (Deut 17:1), engaging in occult activities (Deut 18:9-14), and practicing ritual prostitution (1 Kgs 14:23).

[1:13]  ³⁰ tn Heb “sin and assembly” (these two nouns probably represent a hendiadys). The point is that their attempts at worship are unacceptable to God because the people’s everyday actions in the socio-economic realm prove they have no genuine devotion to God (see vv. 16-17).

[1:15]  ³¹ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ³² sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

[40:16]  ³³ tn The words “for a sacrifice” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[40:16]  ³⁴ sn The point is that not even the Lebanon forest could supply enough wood and animals for an adequate sacrifice to the Lord.

[7:21]  ³⁵ tn The words “The Lord said to the people of Judah” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift in addressee between vv. 16-20 and vv. 21-26.

[7:21]  ³⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[7:21]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Add your burnt offerings to your [other] sacrifices and eat the meat!” See the following sn for explanation. This is an example of the rhetorical use of the imperative for a sarcastic challenge. Cf. GKC 324 §110.a; cf. Amos 4:4, “Go to Bethel and sin!”

[7:22]  ³⁸ tn Heb “For” but this introduces a long explanation about the relative importance of sacrifice and obedience.

[6:6]  ³⁹ tn The phrase “I delight” does not appear in the Hebrew text a second time in this verse, but is implied from the parallelism in the preceding line.

[6:6]  ⁴⁰ sn Contrary to popular misunderstanding, Hosea does not reject animal sacrifice nor cultic ritual, and advocate instead obedience only. Rather, God does not delight in ritual sacrifice without the accompanying prerequisite moral obedience (1 Sam 15:22; Pss 40:6-8; 51:16-17; Prov 21:3; Isa 1:11-17; Jer 7:21-23; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:6-8). However, if prerequisite moral obedience is present, he delights in sacrificial worship as an outward expression (Ps 51:19). Presented by a repentant obedient worshiper, whole burnt offerings were “an aroma pleasing” to the Lord (Lev 1:9, 13).

[5:22]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “burnt offerings and your grain offerings.”

[5:22]  ⁴² tn Heb “Peace offering[s], your fattened calves, I will not look at.”