Matthew 8:4

8:4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you do not speak to anyone, ¹  but go, show yourself to a priest, and bring the offering ²  that Moses commanded, ³  as a testimony to them.” ⁴ 

Matthew 23:19

23:19 You are blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

Deuteronomy 16:16-17

16:16 Three times a year all your males must appear before the Lord your God in the place he chooses for the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Temporary Shelters; and they must not appear before him ⁵  empty-handed. 16:17 Every one of you must give as you are able, ⁶  according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

Deuteronomy 16:1

The Passover-Unleavened Bread Festival

16:1 Observe the month Abib ⁷  and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month ⁸  he ⁹  brought you out of Egypt by night.

Deuteronomy 15:22

15:22 You may eat it in your villages, ¹⁰  whether you are ritually impure or clean, ¹¹  just as you would eat a gazelle or an ibex.

Isaiah 1:10-17

1:10 Listen to the Lord’s word,

you leaders of Sodom! ¹² 

Pay attention to our God’s rebuke, ¹³ 

people of Gomorrah!

1:11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?” ¹⁴ 

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with ¹⁵  burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want. ¹⁶ 

1:12 When you enter my presence,

do you actually think I want this –

animals trampling on my courtyards? ¹⁷ 

1:13 Do not bring any more meaningless ¹⁸  offerings;

I consider your incense detestable! ¹⁹ 

You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations,

but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations! ²⁰ 

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; ²¹ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ²² 

1:16 ²³ Wash! Cleanse yourselves!

Remove your sinful deeds ²⁴ 

from my sight.

Stop sinning!

1:17 Learn to do what is right!

Promote justice!

Give the oppressed reason to celebrate! ²⁵ 

Take up the cause of the orphan!

Defend the rights of the widow! ²⁶ 

Hosea 6:6

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

I delight ²⁷  in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings. ²⁸ 

Amos 5:21-24

5:21 “I absolutely despise ²⁹  your festivals!

I get no pleasure ³⁰  from your religious assemblies!

5:22 Even if you offer me burnt and grain offerings, ³¹  I will not be satisfied;

I will not look with favor on your peace offerings of fattened calves. ³² 

5:23 Take away from me your ³³  noisy songs;

I don’t want to hear the music of your stringed instruments. ³⁴ 

5:24 Justice must flow like torrents of water,

righteous actions ³⁵  like a stream that never dries up.

[8:4]  ¹ sn The command for silence was probably meant to last only until the cleansing took place with the priests and sought to prevent Jesus’ healings from becoming the central focus of the people’s reaction to him. See also 9:30, 12:16, 16:20, and 17:9 for other cases where Jesus asks for silence concerning him and his ministry.

[8:4]  ² tn Grk “gift.”

[8:4]  ³ sn On the phrase bring the offering that Moses commanded see Lev 14:1-32.

[8:4]  ⁴ tn Or “as an indictment against them.” The pronoun αὐτοῖς (autoi") may be a dative of disadvantage.

[16:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

[16:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “a man must give according to the gift of his hand.” This has been translated as second person for stylistic reasons, in keeping with the second half of the verse, which is second person rather than third.

[16:1]  ⁷ sn The month Abib, later called Nisan (Neh 2:1; Esth 3:7), corresponds to March-April in the modern calendar.

[16:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the month Abib.” The demonstrative “that” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[16:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[15:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in your gates.”

[15:22]  ¹¹ tc The LXX adds ἐν σοί (en soi, “among you”) to make clear that the antecedent is the people and not the animals. That is, the people, whether ritually purified or not, may eat such defective animals.

[1:10]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ tn Or “worthless” (NASB, NCV, CEV); KJV, ASV “vain.”

[1:13]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ²² 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.

[1:16]  ²³ sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.

[1:16]  ²⁴ sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).

[1:17]  ²⁵ tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The translation assumes an emendation of חָמוֹץ (khamots, “oppressor [?]”) to חָמוּץ (khamuts, “oppressed”), a passive participle from II חָמַץ (khamats, “oppress”; HALOT 329 s.v. II חמץ) and takes the verb II אָשַׁר (’ashar) in the sense of “make happy” (the delocutive Piel, meaning “call/pronounce happy,” is metonymic here, referring to actually effecting happiness). The parallelism favors this interpretation, for the next two lines speak of positive actions on behalf of the destitute. The other option is to retain the MT pointing and translate, “set right the oppressor,” but the nuance “set right” is not clearly attested elsewhere for the verb I אשׁר. This verb does appear as a participle in Isa 3:12 and 9:16 with the meaning “to lead or guide.” If it can mean to “lead” or “rebuke/redirect” in this verse, the prophet could be contrasting this appeal for societal reformation (v. 17c) with a command to reorder their personal lives (v. 17a-b). J. A. Motyer (The Prophecy of Isaiah, 47) suggests that these three statements (v. 17a-c) provide “the contrast between the two ends of imperfect society, the oppressor and the needy, the one inflicting and the other suffering the hurt. Isaiah looks for a transformed society wherever it needs transforming.”

[1:17]  ²⁶ tn This word refers to a woman who has lost her husband, by death or divorce. The orphan and widow are often mentioned in the OT as epitomizing the helpless and impoverished who have been left without the necessities of life due to the loss of a family provider.

[6:6]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ 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).

[5:21]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I hate”; “I despise.”

[5:21]  ³⁰ tn Heb “I will not smell.” These verses are full of vivid descriptions of the Lord’s total rejection of Israelite worship. In the first half of this verse two verbs are used together for emphasis. Here the verb alludes to the sense of smell, a fitting observation since offerings would have been burned on the altar ideally to provide a sweet aroma to God (see, e.g., Lev 1:9, 13, 17; Num 29:36). Other senses that are mentioned include sight and hearing in vv. 22-23.

[5:22]  ³¹ tn Heb “burnt offerings and your grain offerings.”

[5:22]  ³² tn Heb “Peace offering[s], your fattened calves, I will not look at.”

[5:23]  ³³ tn In this verse the second person suffixes are singular and not plural like they are in vv. 21-22 and vv. 25-27. Some have suggested that perhaps a specific individual or group within the nation is in view.

[5:23]  ³⁴ tn The Hebrew word probably refers to “harps” (NASB, NIV, NRSV) or “lutes” (NEB).

[5:24]  ³⁵ tn Traditionally, “righteousness.”