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| Chapter XXII.—So also were sacrifices and oblations.
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Chapter XXII.—So also were sacrifices
and oblations.
“And that you may learn that
it was for the sins of your own nation, and for their idolatries and not
because there was any necessity for such sacrifices, that they were
likewise enjoined, listen to the manner in which He speaks of these by
Amos, one of the twelve, saying: ‘Woe unto you that desire the day
of the Lord! to what end is this day of the Lord for you? It is darkness
and not light, as when a man flees from the face of a lion, and a bear
meets him; and he goes into his house, and leans his hands against the
wall, and the serpent bites him. Shall not the day of the Lord be
darkness and not light, even very dark, and no brightness in it? I have
hated, I have despised your feast-days, and I will not smell in your
solemn assemblies: wherefore, though ye offer Me your burnt-offerings and
sacrifices, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the
peace-offerings of your presence. Take thou away from Me the multitude of
thy songs and psalms; I will not hear thine instruments. But let judgment
be rolled down as water, and righteousness as an impassable torrent. Have
ye offered unto Me victims and sacrifices in the wilderness, O house of
Israel? saith the Lord. And have ye taken up the tabernacle of Moloch,
and the star of your god Raphan, the figures which ye made for
yourselves? And I will carry you away beyond Damascus, saith the Lord,
whose name is the Almighty God. Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and
trust in the mountain of Samaria: those who are named among the chiefs
have plucked away the first-fruits of the nations: the house of Israel
have entered for themselves. Pass all of you unto Calneh, and see; and
from thence go ye unto Hamath the great, and go down thence to Gath of
the strangers, the noblest of all these kingdoms, if their boundaries are
greater than your boundaries. Ye who come to the evil day, who are
approaching, and who hold to false Sabbaths; who lie on beds of ivory,
and are at ease upon their couches; who eat the lambs out of the flock,
and the sucking calves out of the midst of the herd; who applaud at the
sound of the musical instruments; they reckon them as stable, and not as
fleeting, who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief
ointments, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.
Wherefore now they shall be captives, among the first of the nobles who
are carried away; and the house of evil-doers shall be removed, and the
neighing of horses shall be taken away from Ephraim.’2001
And again by Jeremiah: ‘Collect your flesh, and sacrifices,
and eat: for concerning neither sacrifices nor libations did I command
your fathers in the day in which I took them by the hand to lead them out
of Egypt.’2002
And again by David, in
the forty-ninth Psalm, He thus said: ‘The God of gods, the Lord
hath spoken, and called the earth, from the rising of the sun unto the
going down thereof. Out of Zion is the perfection of His beauty. God,
even our God, shall come openly, and shall not keep silence. Fire shall
burn before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He
shall call to the heavens above, and to the earth, that He may judge His
people. Assemble to Him His saints; those that have made a covenant with
Him by sacrifices. And the heavens shall declare His righteousness, for
God is judge. Hear, O My people, and I will speak to thee; O Israel, and
I will testify to thee, I am God, even thy God. I will not reprove thee
for thy sacrifices; thy burnt-offerings are continually before me. I will
take no bullocks out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds: for all
the beasts of the field are Mine, the herds and the oxen on the
mountains. I know all the fowls of the heavens, and the beauty of the
field is Mine. 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 the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy
vows unto the Most High, and call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I
will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me. But unto the wicked God
saith, What hast thou to do to declare My statutes, and to take My
covenant into thy mouth? But thou hast hated instruction, and cast My
words behind thee. When thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst with him;
and hast been partaker with the adulterer. Thy mouth has framed evil, and
thy tongue has enfolded deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy
brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son. These things hast
thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I would be like
thyself in wickedness. I will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order
before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest He tear
you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. The
sacrifice
of praise shall glorify Me; and there is the way in which I shall show
him My salvation.’2003
Accordingly He
neither takes sacrifices from you nor commanded them at first to be
offered because they are needful to Him, but because of your sins. For
indeed the temple, which is called the temple in Jerusalem, He admitted
to be His house or court, not as though He needed it, but in order that
you, in this view of it, giving yourselves to Him, might not worship
idols. And that this is so, Isaiah says: ‘What house have ye built
Me? saith the Lord. Heaven is My throne, and earth is My
footstool.’2004
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