Isaiah 1:11 - Exposition

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Cui bono? What good end do they serve? "Thinkest thou that I will eat the flesh of bulls, and drink the blood of goats? "( Psalms 1:1-6 :13). God "delights not in burnt offerings." From the time of Samuel he had declared, "Behold, to obey is better then sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" ( 1 Samuel 15:22 ). David had said of him, "Sacrifice and meat offering thou wouldest not; burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin hast thou not required" ( Psalms 40:8 , Psalms 40:9 ); and again, "I will not reprove thee because of thy sacrifices, or for thy burnt offerings, because they were not always before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goat out of thy folds; for all the beasts of the forest are mine, and so are the cattle upon a thousand hills" ( Psalms 50:8-10 ). Not, of course, that either David or Isaiah desired to abolish sacrifice, or had any commission so to do; but they were, both of them, anxious to impress on men that sacrifice, by itself , was nothing—that self-dedication, self-renunciation, true devotion of the heart, with its necessary concomitant obedience, must accompany sacrifice, for God to be pleased therewith. The sacrifices of a people such as is described in verses 21-23 could not but be an offence to him. Saith the Lord. The phrase employed is unusual, and almost confined to Isaiah, occurring elsewhere only in Psalms 12:5 . Isaiah uses it again in verse 18, and also in Isaiah 33:10 ; Isaiah 41:21 ; and Isaiah 66:9 . It is explained to be emphatic, implying that this is what God says, and will say, concerning the matter in hand, once and forever (Kay). I am full of the burnt offerings of rams ; rather, I am overfull , satiated , wearied with them . Barns formed a part of the required sacrifice on all great occasions, as at the Passover ( Numbers 28:19 ), at the Feast of Weeks ( Numbers 28:27 ), at the Feast of Tabernacles ( Numbers 29:13 , Numbers 29:17 , Numbers 29:20 , Numbers 29:23 , Numbers 29:26 , Numbers 29:29 , Numbers 29:32 , Numbers 29:36 ), at the Feast of Trumpets ( Numbers 29:2 ), and on the great Day of Atonement ( Numbers 29:8 ). They were commanded as the sole sacrifice for a trespass offering (Le Isaiah 5:16 , Isaiah 5:18 ). Under David were offered on one occasion "a thousand rams" ( 1 Chronicles 29:21 ); and the occasions where seven rams formed the legitimate sacrifice were many. Unaccompanied by a proper frame of mind, each such offering was an offence to God, displeased him, wearied him. The fat of fed beasts. The fat was always regarded, both by the Hebrews and the Greeks, as especially suitable for sacrifice. It was burnt upon the altar in every case, even where the greater part of the victim was consumed as food (see Le Isaiah 1:8 , Isaiah 1:12 ; Isaiah 3:3 , Isaiah 3:10 , etc.; note particularly the expression in Le Isaiah 3:16 , "All the fat is the Lord's"). "Fed beasts" are those which were kept separate in stalls or sheds for some time before the sacrifice, and given food in which there was nothing" unclean." The Paschal lambs were required to be thus separated and fed for four days ( Exodus 12:3 , Exodus 12:6 ). I delight not in the blood. The blood, "which is the life" (Le Isaiah 17:14 ), was to be sprinkled on the altar in every sacrifice of a victim. This sprinkling was of the very essence of the sacrifice (Le Isaiah 1:5 ; Isaiah 3:2 , Isaiah 3:8 , Isaiah 3:13 ; Isaiah 4:6 , 17, 25, 30, etc.). Bullocks … lambs … he-goats. These, together with rams, constituted all the sacrificial beasts of the Hebrews.