Verse 21
Yahweh, the sovereign God of Israel, commanded His people to eat their whole burnt offerings (Heb. ’oloth), which should have been burned up completely on the altar, as well as the sacrifices (Heb. zebah) that they only ate part of (cf. Leviticus 3; Leviticus 7:11-18; Leviticus 22:18-23; Leviticus 22:27-30). It mattered little to Him how carefully they observed His instructions about offering animal sacrifices to Him if their hearts were not right.
". . . to affirm that the prophets rejected the whole sacrificial system is to go beyond the evidence. It was not the system as such that was rejected but the operation of the system, which divorced sacrifices from obedience and took them out of the covenantal setting in which they found their whole rationale." [Note: Thompson, p. 291.]
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