Isaiah 1:10-15

1:10 Listen to the Lord’s word,

you leaders of Sodom! ¹ 

Pay attention to our God’s rebuke, ² 

people of Gomorrah!

1:11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?” ³ 

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with ⁴  burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want. ⁵ 

1:12 When you enter my presence,

do you actually think I want this –

animals trampling on my courtyards? ⁶ 

1:13 Do not bring any more meaningless ⁷  offerings;

I consider your incense detestable! ⁸ 

You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations,

but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations! ⁹ 

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; ¹⁰ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 3:10

3:10 In spite of all this, ¹²  Israel’s sister, unfaithful Judah, has not turned back to me with any sincerity; she has only pretended to do so,” ¹³  says the Lord.

Jeremiah 7:21-28

7:21 The Lord said to the people of Judah, ¹⁴  “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁵  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! ¹⁶  7:22 Consider this: ¹⁷  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. 7:23 I also explicitly commanded them: ¹⁸  “Obey me. If you do, I ¹⁹  will be your God and you will be my people. Live exactly the way I tell you ²⁰  and things will go well with you.” 7:24 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They followed the stubborn inclinations of their own wicked hearts. They acted worse and worse instead of better. ²¹  7:25 From the time your ancestors departed the land of Egypt until now, ²²  I sent my servants the prophets to you again and again, ²³  day after day. ²⁴  7:26 But your ancestors ²⁵  did not listen to me nor pay attention to me. They became obstinate ²⁶  and were more wicked than even their own forefathers.’”

7:27 Then the Lord said to me, ²⁷  “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not respond to you. 7:28 So tell them: ‘This is a nation that has not obeyed the Lord their God and has not accepted correction. Faithfulness is nowhere to be found in it. These people do not even profess it anymore. ²⁸ 

Micah 6:6-8

6:6 With what should I ²⁹  enter the Lord’s presence?

With what ³⁰  should I bow before the sovereign God? ³¹ 

Should I enter his presence with burnt offerings,

with year-old calves?

6:7 Will the Lord accept a thousand rams,

or ten thousand streams of olive oil?

Should I give him my firstborn child as payment for my rebellion,

my offspring – my own flesh and blood – for my sin? ³² 

6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good,

and what the Lord really wants from you: ³³ 

He wants you to ³⁴  promote ³⁵  justice, to be faithful, ³⁶ 

and to live obediently before ³⁷  your God.

[1:10]  ¹ sn Building on the simile of v. 9, the prophet sarcastically addresses the leaders and people of Jerusalem as if they were leaders and residents of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah. The sarcasm is appropriate, for if the judgment is comparable to Sodom’s, that must mean that the sin which prompted the judgment is comparable as well.

[1:10]  ² tn Heb “to the instruction of our God.” In this context, which is highly accusatory and threatening, תּוֹרָה (torah, “law, instruction”) does not refer to mere teaching, but to corrective teaching and rebuke.

[1:11]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Or “worthless” (NASB, NCV, CEV); KJV, ASV “vain.”

[1:13]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ¹¹ 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.

[3:10]  ¹² tn Heb “And even in all this.”

[3:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “ has not turned back to me with all her heart but only in falsehood.”

[7:21]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[7:21]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “For” but this introduces a long explanation about the relative importance of sacrifice and obedience.

[7:23]  ¹⁸ tn Verses 22-23a read in Hebrew, “I did not speak with your ancestors and I did not command them when I brought them out of Egypt about words/matters concerning burnt offering and sacrifice, but I commanded them this word:” Some modern commentators have explained this passage as an evidence for the lateness of the Pentateuchal instruction regarding sacrifice or a denial that sacrifice was practiced during the period of the wilderness wandering. However, it is better explained as an example of what R. de Vaux calls a dialectical negative, i.e., “not so much this as that” or “not this without that” (Ancient Israel, 454-56). For other examples of this same argument see Isa 1:10-17; Hos 6:4-6; Amos 5:21-25.

[7:23]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Obey me and I will be.” The translation is equivalent syntactically but brings out the emphasis in the command.

[7:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Walk in all the way that I command you.”

[7:24]  ²¹ tn Or “They went backward and not forward”; Heb “They were to the backward and not to the forward.” The two phrases used here appear nowhere else in the Bible and the latter preposition plus adverb elsewhere is used temporally meaning “formerly” or “previously.” The translation follows the proposal of J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB), 57. Another option is “they turned their backs to me, not their faces,” understanding the line as a variant of a line in 2:27.

[7:25]  ²² tn Heb “from the day your ancestors…until this very day.” However, “day” here is idiomatic for “the present time.”

[7:25]  ²³ tn On the Hebrew idiom see the note at 7:13.

[7:25]  ²⁴ tc There is some textual debate about the legitimacy of this expression here. The text reads merely “day” (יוֹם, yom). BHS suggests the word is to be deleted as a dittography of the plural ending of the preceding word. The word is in the Greek and Latin, and the Syriac represents the typical idiom “day after day” as though the noun were repeated. Either יוֹם has dropped out by haplography or a ם (mem) has been left out, i.e., reading יוֹמָם (yomam, “daily”).

[7:26]  ²⁵ tn Or “But your predecessors…”; Heb “But they….” There is a confusing interchange in the pronouns in vv. 25-26 which has led to some leveling in the ancient versions and the modern English versions. What is involved here are four levels of referents, the “you” of the present generation (vv. 21-22a), the ancestors who were delivered from Egypt (i.e., the “they” of vv. 22b-24), the “you” of v. 25 which involves all the Israelites from the Exodus to the time of speaking, and the “they” of v. 26 which cannot be the ancestors of vv. 22-24 (since they cannot be more wicked than themselves) but must be an indefinite entity which is a part of the “you” of v. 25, i.e., the more immediate ancestors of the present generation. If this is kept in mind, there is no need to level the pronouns to “they” and “them” or to “you” and “your” as some of the ancient versions and modern English versions have done.

[7:26]  ²⁶ tn Heb “hardened [or made stiff] their neck.”

[7:27]  ²⁷ tn The words, “Then the Lord said to me” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift from the second and third person plural pronouns in vv. 21-26 and the second singular in this verse. The words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:28]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Faithfulness has vanished. It is cut off from their lips.”

[6:6]  ²⁹ sn With what should I enter the Lord’s presence? The prophet speaks again, playing the role of an inquisitive worshiper who wants to know what God really desires from his followers.

[6:6]  ³⁰ tn The words “with what” do double duty in the parallelism and are supplied in the second line of the translation for clarification.

[6:6]  ³¹ tn Or “the exalted God.”

[6:7]  ³² tn Heb “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is often translated “soul,” but the word usually refers to the whole person; here “the sin of my soul” = “my sin.”

[6:8]  ³³ sn What the Lord really wants from you. Now the prophet switches roles and answers the hypothetical worshiper’s question. He makes it clear that the Lord desires proper attitudes more than ritual and sacrifice.

[6:8]  ³⁴ tn Heb “except.” This statement is actually linked with what precedes, “What does he want from you except….”

[6:8]  ³⁵ tn Heb “to do,” in the sense of “promote.”

[6:8]  ³⁶ tn Heb “to love faithfulness.”

[6:8]  ³⁷ tn Heb “to walk humbly [or perhaps, “carefully”] with.”