GOD AND SACRIFICE, PRIEST AND PROPHET

Bring your worthless offerings no longer.

So announces Isaiah to a probably confused audience. Such critiques are a common feature of the prophetic tradition, and they’re often interpreted to mean that God never required sacrifice, or that He is opposed to external ritual in favor of inward disposition. This perceived divide is then read as a controversy between the prophetic love of justice over against a priestly concern for formalism, purity, and exclusion.

But are these the right inferences to draw from the prophets’ occasional critiques of the sacrificial system? And if not, what is the purpose of sacrifice? And what do the prophets mean?

Thomas Horrocks wrote a provocative piece on sacrifice and accommodation a couple weeks back asking: Was ritual sacrifice ever God’s will for His people? As part of my foray into this subject, I thought I would offer a response to his interesting post. Below I offer a summary, partial critique, and different way forward. I’ll summarize it before starting, but you should just read his piece here (it’s about 10k words).

SUMMARY

Horrocks argues that ritual sacrifice was a divine accommodation given to Israel to meet their psychological need of sensing their sins had been dealt with. The rituals and animal slaughter gave them a tangible act to sense the intangible reality of God’s forgiveness. He compares the Israelite system to pre-existing Canaanite practices and argues that the Israelite system was basically just a pared down version. He notes that God forbade the Israelites from certain Canaanite practices and consequently wonders why God would then give them a system so comparable to the Canaanites. His response:

The best answer seems to be accommodation. In other words, based on both the biblical and archaeological evidence, the cultic system in Israel seems to have been God permitting Israel to practice the least bad version of the Canaanite system. Or, to state it another way, the sacrificial code in Israel was a restriction on the wider sacrificial systems. It’s almost as if God was saying, “Sacrifice is permissible, but only animals and not your kids. A temple/tabernacle is permissible, but don’t make a physical idol.”

His basic conclusion is: “Everything we [have] seen up to this point makes me suspect that God did not actually require a sacrifice, but rather that God permitted the people to offer sacrifices for their own benefit, to give them some tangible way of feeling like their sins had been adequately dealt with.”

He makes his case in three moves. He begins by demonstrating other areas of “accommodation” in the bible. His first example is Moses’ “command/permission” for a man to divorce one’s wife. He argues this is accommodation because it wasn’t this way “in the beginning,” as Jesus pointed out in his dialogue with some Pharisees (Matt 19). Because there was no divorce in the beginning, the command by Moses is a concession, or accommodation, by God to the hard-heartedness of the people. The inference Horrocks draws is that “ritual sacrifice” functions the same way. There was no “ritual sacrifice” in the beginning; therefore, its subsequent appearance in the Pentateuch is an example of God giving the people what they want, as it were, but for their benefit, not His.

Horrocks makes the same point by alluding to another example of accommodation: the Israelite desire for a king, which God warned against, but conceded in the end. This point’s implication is the same: ritual sacrifice is not God’s will (at least not as discernible from “the beginning”).

His second move is to compare the Israelite sacrificial system to that of the Canaanites. He writes: “Israelite sacrificial practices were not categorically or experientially different from Canaanite rites. . .” Given that the Canaanites’ preceded Israel’s and given that they are so similar (according to Horrocks), he concludes the Israelite system must be an accommodation by God. The logic seems to be that the Israelites must have been exposed to their system, and though unstated in the text, they consequently must have craved something like it, which God accommodated.

His third and final move is to examine the critiques of the prophets (Isaiah 1, Jeremiah 7, Hosea 6, Amos 5) and psalms. These texts appear to critique the sacrificial system, and Horrocks concludes their critique is based on the insufficiency of sacrifice, especially during periods of rampant disobedience. What God wants is their obedience, not their sacrifice, he argues, supplying further evidence that the whole system originated for the benefit of Israel and was never really required by God.

The inference drawn by Horrocks is that offerings are not really what make people “right” with God. He concludes:

In sum, the overall narrative indicates, and the prophets themselves seem to state explicitly, that there were periods of time in which God maintained his covenant relationship with his people apart from the sacrificial system. This, at least to me, suggests rather strongly God himself never actually required any kind of sacrifice in order to initiate, maintain, or restore relationship with humanity. In short, the “Jesus hermeneutic,” in combination with the overall witness of the Old Testament, suggests that it was the people, not God, who found satisfaction in sacrifice.

CRITIQUE

I agree with much of what Horrocks says, but not all, and I would modify a handful of inferences he draws. And I want to be clear: though this post responds to Horrocks, much of what he has said is representative of much wider group, thus this should be read accordingly. After making some general comments, I’ll address these points in the order described above: a) that sacrifice wasn’t offered “in the beginning”; b) the comparison to the Canaanite system; and c) the prophetic critique.

First, I’m not sure what labeling something “accommodation” actually proves. Surely everything is accommodation when it comes to God interacting with created things. For God to communicate anything at all to us requires He accommodate to our linguistic limits, but the latter does not imply the communicative act is not representative of God’s will. And for God to take on human flesh is quite the accommodation! Now, if all this label implies is that God doesn’t benefit from the activity, that makes some sense. But what benefits our needless God? In other words, what isn’t accommodation on that rubric? Moreover, God can still require something without it “benefiting” Him. God requires “faith” from His people, but it doesn’t follow that our faith benefits God. In the same way, sacrifice wouldn’t need to benefit God for it to be required by Him. And if the label implies that it wasn’t His will from the beginning, then that makes some sense as well. Though, again, everything post-rebellion is outside the bounds of “the beginning,” and as such, likely necessitates some accommodation of God’s will. But conceding the latter point does not imply that sacrifice was only for the psychological benefit of the people outside of God’s purposes. Sacrifice could still accomplish a real, not reductively psychological, effect in the relationship between Israel and God (as I think it assuredly does).

Also, importantly, this kind of interpretative move could be applied to any subsequent text or event in ways that many probably wouldn’t accept. For example:

“Resurrection” was not a reality “in the beginning” because resurrection only becomes a requirement after “death” becomes a reality. Therefore, “resurrection” is an accommodation. Also, resurrection wasn’t really God’s will because it doesn’t do anything for God; it only meets a psychological/somatic need to assure us of some form of life after death.

Now, to be sure, Horrocks is not arguing the latter. But I wonder how logically different it is from his argument about ritual sacrifice. Of course, some would protest that the scriptures contain contextual clues (e.g. the prophetic critiques) that lend themselves to Horrocks’ reading of the sacrificial system, whereas my example about the resurrection contains no such clues. However, I don’t think those prophetic critiques should be read as Horrocks implies. But more on that below.

Second, still in terms of a general critique, “sacrifice” was never really defined, and it was often (mistakenly, in my view) reduced to the “slaughter” of the animals. I’m happy to be corrected here, but the sense I got was that sacrifice according to Horrocks was considered basically to refer to the animal’s death. I do not think that is accurate, but also more on that below.

I turn now to evaluate those three basic moves, starting with his point about “the beginning.” And it may surprise Horrocks to hear I agree.

BLOOD IN EDEN?

I do not think “ritual sacrifice” (at least not as it’s described in Leviticus/Numbers) was part of reality in “the beginning,” as far as Gen 1–2 indicate. (Though I do think Gen 1–2 describe creation and the Human role within it with temple imagery, suggesting creation is intended to be a temple (= dwelling) for God, and Humans were designed to function as Priests within that reality).  But we agree here: ritual sacrifice, as I understand it, is a requirement only after the rebellion.

THE CANAANITE SYSTEM

Horrocks argues that because the Canaanites were doing it first, the Israelite system should be understood as accommodation. I have to be honest – I don’t see the logic here. This appears to be the genetic fallacy. Identifying the origins or chronological relationship between two systems speaks nothing about the “truthfulness” or significance of either. The Canaanites were certainly sacrificing before the Israelites, but that simply doesn’t speak to the question of whether “sacrifice” was God’s will or not. (Other religions contemporary to early Christianity, including forms of Judaism, practiced forms of “baptism.” Does that imply the Christian rite is a form of accommodation?)

Moreover, the claim that the Canaanite system and that of the Israelites were “not categorically or experientially different” is not accurate. The Canaanite system included child sacrifice, a practice explicitly condemned by God in Israel’s system. Surely that qualifies as a different “experience.” (And if not, I guess I’m confused as to what would constitute an “experiential difference”). And again, even if one could demonstrate “categorical similarity,” that simply wouldn’t speak to the significance or “willed-ness” of the Israelite system.

THE PROPHETIC CRITIQUE

Horrocks rightly identifies a well-known feature of the prophets: their occasional critique of the sacrificial system. This common insight is routinely invoked to demonstrate either that the sacrificial system was an accommodation (of the kind Horrocks means), or as evidence of a progressive move away from sacrifice (so Brian Zahnd, et al). I’m not convinced it’s the right interpretation of the prophets or Psalm 51. Before diving into a few individual texts, here’s how I think they work on the whole.

God made a covenant (binding, legal agreement) with Israel. The chief blessing of this covenant is God’s willingness to dwell in their midst. All other “blessings” (so termed throughout the Pentateuch, most notably Deut 28) are consequent to this foundational blessing of God Himself. One of the multiple ways Israel keeps this covenant intact is through their sacrificial offerings. (This is not by some “magic” by which they force God’s hand with death or blood. The functionality of the sacrifices is part of God’s own design – a point I’ll subsequently defend). Here’s how they work:

When someone commits a transgression, the net result is not simply their psychological guilt or indebtedness toward God. Those obtain as well, but they do not describe the whole of the consequence. When a person commits a transgression, the transgression has the capacity to defile God’s space – the very altars of the tabernacle/temple. The terrible dignity is that egregious sins have the capacity to defile even God’s own dwelling place – the hilasterion, the “meeting place” behind the veil. If these defilements, or “contaminations,” accumulate and are never dealt with, they have the capacity to drive away God’s dwelling presence, aka His “glory” (for He will not dwell in impurity, at least not without destroying it, and both parties would rather avoid that).

Ezekiel 8–10 evinces this logic.

In Ezek 8, the prophet is shown all the “abominations” the people are committing (i.e. their acts of idolatry in the very temple precincts!) Here’s what God says to Ezekiel:

Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, that I should be far from My sanctuary?

The catastrophe climaxes in Ezek 10, in which God’s glory departs.

Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim.

Thus sacrifices have as a chief (but not sole) end the purification of God’s dwelling place. The festival by which such purification is obtained is Yom Kippur, during which even the altar behind the veil is purified. Here’s Lev 16:16. Note how the objects that receive atonement are God’s own altars:

And he shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions, in regard to all their sins. And thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities.

The altars having been purified, God remains in the temple, and Israel and God can dwell in each other’s presence (the chief covenant blessing!)

However, here’s the catch.

Such sacrifices only operate within a maintained covenant.

Once the covenant is breached, the sacrifices are no longer operative. Worse yet: rather than being acceptable gifts that purify the temple, they now aggravate God.

Importantly, once the covenant is breached, it’s breached. And the breach occurs through Israel’s repetitive, unrepentant act of idolatry – going after other gods. And once God decides their idolatry has effectually breached the covenant, the covenant no longer dispenses its blessings; now it only dispenses its promised curses. These promised curses are listed in Deut 28 and Lev 26. And one of the promised curses is God’s rejection of the sacrifices (Lev 26:31; Deut 31:17).

Now back to the prophetic critique: the prophets are declaring that Israel has broken the covenant, and as such, the curses are being poured out. Therefore when the prophets declare that God hates their sacrifices, it is not an outright repudiation of the sacrificial system; it is a declaration – conditioned by their stage of Israel’s history – that God no longer delights in their offerings. According to those prophetic passages, Israel has breached the covenant, and God has inaugurated the curses, one of which is His absence from the temple and consequent rejection of sacrifices. In that situation the right move for Israel isn’t more sacrifice (for they avail nothing now). Rather the right response is recognition and public repentance of their covenant breach, acceptance of God’s punitive response, and faith that God will restore the covenant and its attendant blessings the other side of the promised punishment. The latter rubric should govern our reading of the prophets’ critique of sacrifice (as that wider rubric is evinced in a contextual reading). Finally, to the texts.

Isaiah 1

Note how Isaiah begins with a declaration that they’ve broken the covenant, proceeds by claiming the curses are outpoured, and concludes by declaring the punishment that will inevitably come.

1:2–4: Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the LORD speaks.” [This is the language of the courtroom, calling witnesses to testify. The metaphorical domain for the following critique is a covenant lawsuit in which Israel is being “indicted” for their breach of the agreement]. Sons I have reared and brought up, but they have revolted against Me. . . . Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from Him.

The precise accusation is what we’d call idolatry, going after other gods. They have abandoned the covenant God, but note: there is no sacrificial provision for idolatry. Once the nation has committed this abandonment (however that’s measured by God), the curses are poured out.

Isaiah continues: “Where will you be stricken again as you continue in your rebellion? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint.” The point seems to be that these “strikes” never resulted in Israel’s repentance as intended, so where else can they be stricken?

The next lines, Isa 1:7–8:

Your land is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Your fields – strangers devour them in your presence. It is desolation, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a watchman’s hut in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.

Each of these outcomes is a covenant curse. And remember, the classic lists of covenant curses are Deut 28 and Lev 26. Compare the outcomes of Isa 1 with the curses promised in Lev 26 and Deut 28.

Isa 1:7’s Desolate land and cities: “And I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled over it” (Lev 26:32).

Isa 1:7’s Strangers devouring your land: “A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labors, and you shall never be anything but oppressed and crushed continually” (Deut 28:33; see also Lev 26:16)

Isa 1:8’s Jerusalem besieged: “And [a nation whom you don’t know] shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you” (Deut 28:52; passim Deut 28; Lev 26).

So what’s my point? Each of the punitive outcomes listed in Isa 1 is drawn from the list of promised curses that would obtain upon Israel’s covenant breach. And the same applies to God’s rejection of their sacrifices. When Isaiah proceeds to denounce their sacrificial offerings (“What are your multiplied sacrifices to me?” etc.) we should understand the latter in the same vein, for, again, one of the punitive curses is God’s abandonment of the temple and His consequent rejection of their offerings. So says that same list of curses from Leviticus:

Lev 26:31: I will lay waste your cities as well, and will make your sanctuaries desolate. And I will not smell your soothing aromas.

The “soothing aromas” is a metonymy for all the sacrificial offerings. The phrase appends many of the directions regarding how to offer a given animal (Lev 1:9, 13, 17, 2:2, etc.). God claiming He’ll no longer “smell” them means He will reject their sacrifices. Isaiah is simply articulating what he had been for the several previous verses: Israel has broken the covenant, so God is pouring out the promised curses, one of which is God’s rejection of their offerings.

But see how Isa 1 ends (vv 25–26):

I will also turn My hand against you, and will smelt away your dross as with lye, and will remove all your alloy. Then I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. After that you will be called the city of righteousness, a faithful city.

Israel is assured restoration will come (thank the Lord!), but only after the promised disaster. Isaiah’s critique of the sacrificial system, then, isn’t a denunciation of the system per se; it’s his announcement that, in light of Israel’s covenant breach, the promised curses are being poured out, one of which is God’s rejection of the sacrificial offerings, and therefore they are no longer acceptable. And look! In the restoration promised by God through Isaiah – the restoration that God effects post-endurance of covenant curses – the renewal entails a re-glorified temple (Isa 60:1–13) and acceptance of offerings from a wider group of people (Isa 56:7).

Undoubtedly the latter texts are freshly interpreted in the New Testament (to be addressed in a different post), but nonetheless they are a clue that Isaiah’s critique is conditioned by that stage of the story, demonstrating it’s not a wholesale critique of sacrifice, but rather a denunciation of the system’s incapacity to mend the breach caused by their idolatry. If it were a wholesale rejection, why would the restoration entail a renewal of the temple and its sacrificial system?

Let’s do another one.

JEREMIAH

Let’s begin with Jeremiah 11:10–15, which I take to be one of the most tragic passages in the Old Testament. The same logic is operative here as in Isa 1. The indictment is idolatry. The outcome is God’s punitive curses from which sacrificial offerings avail nothing. My point: the latter is the basis for the critique of Israel’s sacrificial system. Not because it’s outdated or not really God’s will, but because at this stage of Israel’s covenant relationship with YHWH, it simply doesn’t work as intended because sacrifices only function within a maintained covenant. But the covenant is no longer maintained. Here are portions of Jer 11:10-15:

They have turned back to the iniquities of their ancestors who refused to hear My words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers. Therefore thus says the LORD, ‘Behold I am bringing disaster on them which they will not be able to escape; though they will cry to Me, yet I will not listen to them.” [Note: they cannot escape this disaster because it is the one promised by God]. ‘What right has My beloved in My house when she has done many vile deeds? Can the sacrificial flesh take away from you your disaster?’

My reading of this text is probably obvious at this point. Israel has turned away from God by going after other gods. The latter action breaches the binding agreement, so now God is being faithful to respond with the promised and agreed upon curses. And in that state of affairs, sacrificial flesh is meaningless. It’s not a blanket condemnation of the practice; it’s an announcement that sacrifice cannot avert the approaching disaster.

The same logic applies to Jeremiah 7, which contains one of the critiques of the sacrificial system. In Jeremiah 7, the people are indicted for idolatry and its attendant behaviors that lamentably run rampant among God’s covenant people. “Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ – that you may do all these abominations?” The people have become idolatrous (again, a transgression for which there is no sacrificial provision), and consequently they steal, murder, commit adultery, and the rest. God certainly cares about these so-called “horizontal” failures (please don’t hear otherwise), but it must be remembered that the critique of the sacrificial system occurs in those contexts that contain a broader indictment. In such contexts, the sacrificial system does not benefit the people. The latter is the basis for the critique.

But what about in the restoration? What happens when God restores Israel’s fortunes after completing the promised, punitive curses, according to Jeremiah?

Thankfully he doesn’t leave us guessing. Jeremiah 33, one of Jeremiah’s few “restoration” passages, promises the salvation of Judah, the reinstitution of the Davidic lineage, and the reinstitution of the sacrificial system. Here’s Jer 33:14–22 (truncated):

‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth. . . .’ For thus says the LORD, ‘David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to prepare sacrifices continually. . . . If you can break My covenant for the day, and My covenant for the night, so that day and night will not be at their appointed time, then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levitical priests, My ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be counted, and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David My servant and the Levites who minister to Me.

If Jeremiah is against sacrifice wholesale, he has a funny way of showing it. This text probably speaks for itself at this point, but let me draw some conclusions. Jeremiah does critique sacrifice in spots, but not because he thinks God doesn’t “really” care about them or only actually cares about the inward disposition. His critique of sacrifice is conditioned by his location in Israel’s story, in which Israel has broken the covenant and as such, their sacrifices cannot avert the promised disaster. After the disaster (the outpouring of the punitive curses experienced as the destruction of the temple; the exile; captivity) God promises to restore the covenant blessings by bringing the people back to the land, restoring the Davidic monarch (with a righteous king, finally!), and restoring the Levitical priesthood so that burnt offerings will be offered continually. The critique of sacrifice belongs to the stage of the story in which the system no longer benefits Israel because they themselves have breached the agreement through which the benefits are given by God. When the covenant is restored, however, so are the sacrifices.

PSALM 51

I think the above rubric could work for most if not all prophetic critiques of the sacrificial system, but for the sake of space I’ll let it speak only within the texts described above. But it’s time to turn to Psalm 51, the most-cited text in this ongoing debate. And I can even make this short: just read the verses that immediately follow the so-called repudiation!

The text is well-known. In it David cries out: “You don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. Burnt offerings do not please you” (Ps 51:16). This is taken by many to imply a wholesale repudiation of sacrifice per se, which is often expanded or interpreted as God’s rejection of “external ritualism” in favor of inward dispositions that are pure. (Horrocks did not say the latter, but many others have and do). This interpretation fails for two reasons.

First, according to the heading of the psalm, David’s prayer is in reference to his sin with Bathsheba, which entails adultery and murder. (Verse 14’s reference to “bloodguilt” implies his act of murder is also in view). According to Leviticus, such sins have no corresponding sacrificial provision. The psalmist refers specifically to the “burnt offering” (described in Lev 4:1–12). The latter applies only to “unintentional sins” (Lev 4:2). David’s sin of adultery and murder certainly would not qualify as “unintentional,” and consequently the sacrificial provision described in Lev 4 would not apply to his case. At best, it may be forgiven on Yom Kippur (meaning, the sinner in question would have to wait until the festival), but even that is up for debate. (Some Leviticus scholars argue Yom Kippur only atones unintentional sins, and David’s sin would not qualify). In any case the sacrificial system is simply of no help with respect to the sin of Psalm 51. Importantly, this is not a spontaneous realization of the guilt-stricken David. The sacrificial system itself makes this ruling.  The bull’s blood and subsequent burnt offering are not available to him.

In fact, to make an offering for such sins might itself be a transgression. The latter could be inferred from Lev 18:29 (in which the brazen sinner is to be cut off from the people), and Amos 4:4, in which Amos describes the offerings of idolatrous Israel as a “multiplying of their transgressions.”

In light of his recognition that sacrificial flesh does not please God in this context, the psalmist prays that God cleanse him Himself. It is his last recourse. Thus once more we have not a wholesale rejection of sacrifice, but a recognition, in line with the priestly legislation of Leviticus and Numbers, that God does not accept the burnt offerings from those who commit the sins in question.

Second, after David’s implicit restoration, what do we find? In the very next verse he prays that Zion be restored, Jerusalem be rebuilt, and offerings be accepted once more. Here’s how Psalm 51 ends (the final two verses immediately after the claim that God isn’t pleased with “burnt offering”):

By your favor do good to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices, in burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then young bulls will be offered on your altar.

After the implied restoration of the psalmist, his declaration is that God will then delight in sacrifices, burnt offerings, and bulls. Even if my first point isn’t accepted, these closing verses question that the best interpretation of the psalm entails a wholesale rejection of sacrifice, or a progressive move away from sacrifice toward internal disposition. Rather, in line with the previous suggestions for Isaiah and Jeremiah, it resembles a recognition that sacrifice does not avail in the subject’s particular condition, and so he prays for God’s restorative action, the other side of which includes a restoration of acceptable sacrifices.

Isn’t this how many other prophetic passages work?

Daniel 9 laments that Israel is enduring God’s prolonged wrath because they, the people, have transgressed the covenant, but the promised restoration includes a restoration of the temple and corresponding system of atonement.

Or Malachi, which begins as a scathing indictment of the priesthood. They do everything wrong. They don’t teach the people, so the people are disobedient; and even the priests don’t even know the law, so they offer sacrifices wrongly. God’s response: “‘Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar! I am not pleased with you,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘nor will I accept an offering from you’” (Mal 1:10). Yet how does Malachi end? With the famous promise that He will suddenly come to His temple. But who can stand that day? For He will sit as a purifier of silver, “and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD, as in the days of old and as in former years” (Mal 3:3–4). The critique of sacrifice is conditioned by the contextual problem; after the solution (or judgment) of that contextualized issue, the goal is the resumption of sacrifice.

Ezekiel of course contains the most detailed articulation of the inclusion of temple and sacrifice in his vision of the restoration. In Ezek 1–10, the priests and people commit idolatry in the temple precincts, because of which God departs the temple, leaving it vulnerable to the Babylonians. The temple is destroyed, and the people are exiled and live in captivity. In the restoration, however (depicted in Ezek 36–48), they are brought back to the land, their enemies are destroyed, the temple is rebuilt, the sanctuary re-inaugurated, and the priests resume the sacrifices. (Again, I understand the latter is transposed into a different plane in the New Testament, but those categories remain intact – a post for another time). The point at this stage is simply to show that Ezekiel – who critiques the priesthood and alone depicts YHWH’s actual departure from the temple – includes a renewed temple and resumption of sacrifice in his vision of the restoration, and that in great detail! It’s too much text to transpose but simply go read Ezek 40–48. It contains detailed descriptions of the to-be constructed temple, the inauguration of its instruments through blood-manipulation, and the return of God’s glory. Here’s one representative paragraph, taken from Ezek 43:

Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing toward the east; and behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the way of the east. . . . Behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house. . . . Behold, this is the law of the house. And these are the measurements of the altar by cubits. . . . And He said to me, Son of man, thus says the Lord God, ‘These are the statutes for the altar on the day it is built, to offer burnt offerings on it and to sprinkle blood on it. . . . For seven days they shall make atonement for the altar and purify it; so shall they consecrate it. And when they have completed the days, it shall be that on the eighth day and onward, the priests shall offer your burnt offerings on the altar, and your peace offerings; and I will accept you,’ declares the Lord God.

Just like the other prophets, Ezekiel’s early critique is conditioned by the idolatrous activity of the people, for which they are judged. The restoration from that judgment, however, entails (to put it mildly) the restoration of the temple and sacrificial system. Comparable conclusions could be deduced from Haggai 1 and Zechariah 6, in which God commands the people to build His temple, but the point has been made.

Thus is the prophetic/psalmic critique of the sacrificial system really evidence that God doesn’t “require” sacrifice? Or that it’s an “accommodation” that God Himself didn’t really will? I don’t think so. Their critiques were based on the non-efficacious nature of the cult to avert the promised disaster, but after the disaster, the prophets (even weeping Jeremiah!) depict the restoration of the sacrificial system as a blessing attendant to the renewed covenant and as a requirement for God’s people to enable them to dwell in His midst.

CONCLUSION

Here I’ll end with points of agreement.

Does God benefit from the sacrificial system, or is it only for the benefit of the people?

To be sure, God does not benefit from sacrifice in the sense that He feels hunger and is sated by bull flesh; nor does God have a “need” for violence and is sated by slaughter. He is not hungry nor does He crave violence. There I agree with Horrocks.

And the system certainly benefited Israel, but not, I think, for the reason Horrocks implies. Horrocks claims that the sacrifices gave them some tangible way to sense the intangible forgiveness of God. But in my view, the sacrifices did more than that.

Their transgressions actually defiled God’s dwelling place (see Lev 15:31; 16:16; 20:3). This was not a metaphor, at least not according to the biblical text.  And the blood of the sacrifices solves this particular problem, serving as a sort of ritual detergent to purge the altars of the contamination consequent their transgressions (see Lev 16:15–16). This benefits Israel in two ways: one, defiling God’s sanctified objects put them in danger, for doing so was actually punishable by death (see Lev 15:31; Lev 22:3, 9), thus cleansing them was necessary and beneficial for Israel; two, if contaminations aren’t dealt with, God leaves (again, see Ezek 8–10; Jer 7:7); therefore, dealing with the contaminations benefits Israel.

Sacrifices, then, are God’s gift to Israel so that they can make atonement, that is, so that they can purify God’s dwelling place, thereby ransoming their lives from the inevitable death that would obtain were He absent. This is the wonder of Lev 17:11. In a marvelous reversal, the blood isn’t Israel’s manipulative gift to God, but God’s gift to them: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your lives; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.”

Moreover, God does prefer obedience to sacrifice in some way, but the latter schematization typically misunderstands two things about Jewish sacrifice: first, offering sacrifice was obedience. The prescriptions regarding sacrifice are commands in God’s Law to Israel, and as such, to offer sacrifice at the appropriate, God-ordained times is to obey.

Second, the above construal often assumes that sacrifice is only a provision for disobedience. I sinned so I sacrifice, it is thought. But the latter misconstrues massive aspects of the sacrificial system. Some sacrifices were given simply out of praise or thankfulness (see Lev 7:11–17). And many others – and this is key, and often misunderstood in some modern contexts – had nothing to do with “sin” as we use the term, but body-related impurities, such as fluid emission, childbirth, and disease. The latter were not considered “sins” that required forgiveness; they were, however, considered “defiling” in the neutral sense of that word, and as such, required “purification,” again, in the non-moral sense of that word. And occasionally such purification required sacrifice (see Lev 12:6–8). They required purification because severe bodily impurity, even if not sinful, had the capacity to defile God’s altars, requiring the latter’s purification through sacrifice. Thus commission of sin defiled the sinner and the altar, and as such required sacrifice that effected purification and forgiveness. But bodily impurities – which were not considered sins! – still required purification through sacrifice, but not forgiveness.

So, yes, sacrifice is a provision for disobedience, but also for mortality, i.e. the fact that our bodies decay. The former requires sacrifice for purification of the altars and forgiveness of the sinner, but the latter only requires purification and not forgiveness, sometimes simply by washing, but sometimes through sacrifice. Thus in that sense “sacrifice” is an accommodation by God to our need, but it is still “required” by God so that He will keep His promise to dwell in Israel’s midst. That need was met in the OT through ritual sacrifice; it is met in the present and future through Christ and the Spirit. Christ forgives our sins, serving as our High Priest in the present, having made purification with his own blood, and when He returns we receive our resurrection bodies – bodies fully empowered by God’s Spirit, bodies no longer subject to decay – so that we can dwell in the New Creation when God floods it with His glorious presence.

So does sacrifice understood this way benefit God? Again, not really. However, it is one of God’s promises that He dwell with His people, and the sacrifices enable that. By God’s gift and decree, they function to purify the altars so that Israel and God can occupy the same space without Israel’s mortal, decaying existence being consumed by God’s immortal, never-decaying existence. Though they don’t benefit some need or deficiency of God, they do, by God’s design, enable the fulfillment of His promise in this world that constantly requires He accommodate Himself to our needs.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism by Jonathan Klawans
Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism by Jonathan Klawans
Leviticus 1-16 (commentary) by Jacob Milgrom
Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews by David M. Moffitt