Mazmur 40:7-9

40:7 Then I say,

“Look! I come!

What is written in the scroll pertains to me. ¹ 

40:8 I want to do what pleases you, ²  my God.

Your law dominates my thoughts.” ³ 

40:9 I have told the great assembly ⁴  about your justice. ⁵ 

Look! I spare no words! ⁶ 

O Lord, you know this is true.

Mazmur 51:18

51:18 Because you favor Zion, do what is good for her! ⁷ 

Fortify ⁸  the walls of Jerusalem! ⁹ 

Amsal 21:3

21:3 To do righteousness and justice

is more acceptable ¹⁰  to the Lord than sacrifice. ¹¹ 

Yesaya 1:11-15

1:11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?” ¹² 

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with ¹³  burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want. ¹⁴ 

1:12 When you enter my presence,

do you actually think I want this –

animals trampling on my courtyards? ¹⁵ 

1:13 Do not bring any more meaningless ¹⁶  offerings;

I consider your incense detestable! ¹⁷ 

You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations,

but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations! ¹⁸ 

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; ¹⁹ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ²⁰ 

Yeremia 7:22

7:22 Consider this: ²¹  When I spoke to your ancestors after I brought them out of Egypt, I did not merely give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Hosea 6:6

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

I delight ²²  in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings. ²³ 

Amos 5:25

5:25 You did not bring me ²⁴  sacrifices and grain offerings during the forty years you spent in the wilderness, family ²⁵  of Israel.

Mikha 6:6-8

6:6 With what should I ²⁶  enter the Lord’s presence?

With what ²⁷  should I bow before the sovereign God? ²⁸ 

Should I enter his presence with burnt offerings,

with year-old calves?

6:7 Will the Lord accept a thousand rams,

or ten thousand streams of olive oil?

Should I give him my firstborn child as payment for my rebellion,

my offspring – my own flesh and blood – for my sin? ²⁹ 

6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good,

and what the Lord really wants from you: ³⁰ 

He wants you to ³¹  promote ³²  justice, to be faithful, ³³ 

and to live obediently before ³⁴  your God.

Markus 12:33

12:33 And to love him with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength ³⁵  and to love your neighbor as yourself ³⁶  is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

[40:7]  ¹ tn Heb “in the roll of the scroll it is written concerning me.” Apparently the psalmist refers to the law of God (see v. 8), which contains the commandments God desires him to obey. If this is a distinctly royal psalm, then the psalmist/king may be referring specifically to the regulations of kingship prescribed in Deut 17:14-20. See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 315.

[40:8]  ² tn Or “your will.”

[40:8]  ³ tn Heb “your law [is] in the midst of my inner parts.” The “inner parts” are viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s thought life and moral decision making.

[40:9]  ⁴ sn The great assembly is also mentioned in Pss 22:25 and 35:18.

[40:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “I proclaim justice in the great assembly.” Though “justice” appears without a pronoun here, the Lord’s just acts are in view (see v. 10). His “justice” (צֶדֶק, tsedeq) is here the deliverance that originates in his justice; he protects and vindicates the one whose cause is just.

[40:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “Look! My lips I do not restrain.”

[51:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “do what is good for Zion in your favor.”

[51:18]  ⁸ tn Or “Build.” The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.

[51:18]  ⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[21:3]  ¹⁰ tn The Niphal participle בָּחַר (bakhar, “to choose”) means “choice to the Lord” or “chosen of the Lord,” meaning “acceptable to the Lord”; cf. TEV “pleases the Lord more.”

[21:3]  ¹¹ sn The Lord prefers righteousness above religious service (e.g., Prov 15:8; 21:29; 1 Sam 15:22; Ps 40:6-8; Isa 1:11-17). This is not a rejection of ritual worship; rather, religious acts are without value apart from righteous living.

[1:11]  ¹² 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]  sn In this section the Lord refutes a potential objection that his sinful people might offer in their defense. He has charged them with rebellion (vv. 2-3), but they might respond that they have brought him many sacrifices. So he points out that he requires social justice first and foremost, not empty ritual.

[1:11]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tn Or “worthless” (NASB, NCV, CEV); KJV, ASV “vain.”

[1:13]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ²⁰ 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.

[7:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “For” but this introduces a long explanation about the relative importance of sacrifice and obedience.

[6:6]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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).

[5:25]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Did you bring me…?” This rhetorical question expects a negative answer. The point seems to be this: Since sacrifices did not characterize God’s relationship with Israel during the nation’s formative years, the people should not consider them to be so fundamental. The Lord places a higher priority on justice than he does on empty ritual.

[5:25]  sn Like Jer 7:22-23, this passage seems to contradict the Pentateuchal accounts that indicate Israel did offer sacrifices during the wilderness period. It is likely that both Amos and Jeremiah overstate the case to emphasize the relative insignificance of sacrifices in comparison to weightier matters of the covenant. See R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 428.

[5:25]  ²⁵ tn Heb “house.”

[6:6]  ²⁶ sn With what should I enter the Lord’s presence? The prophet speaks again, playing the role of an inquisitive worshiper who wants to know what God really desires from his followers.

[6:6]  ²⁷ tn The words “with what” do double duty in the parallelism and are supplied in the second line of the translation for clarification.

[6:6]  ²⁸ tn Or “the exalted God.”

[6:7]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is often translated “soul,” but the word usually refers to the whole person; here “the sin of my soul” = “my sin.”

[6:8]  ³⁰ sn What the Lord really wants from you. Now the prophet switches roles and answers the hypothetical worshiper’s question. He makes it clear that the Lord desires proper attitudes more than ritual and sacrifice.

[6:8]  ³¹ tn Heb “except.” This statement is actually linked with what precedes, “What does he want from you except….”

[6:8]  ³² tn Heb “to do,” in the sense of “promote.”

[6:8]  ³³ tn Heb “to love faithfulness.”

[6:8]  ³⁴ tn Heb “to walk humbly [or perhaps, “carefully”] with.”

[12:33]  ³⁵ sn A quotation from Deut 6:5.

[12:33]  ³⁶ sn A quotation from Lev 19:18.