Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel Add your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.
Jeremiah stands at the temple gate, and God tells the worshippers to eat the meat of their own burnt offerings. The burnt offering belonged wholly to God, so why does He hand it back as if it were ordinary food?
The people were not neglecting worship. They were using it as cover:
The rest of Jeremiah 7 (verse 21 onward) reminds the people that Jehovah's claim was obedience. It was not burnt offerings to hide their transgressions and stubborn wickedness. That wickedness grew worse and worse as the prophets followed the law.
Earlier in the chapter Jeremiah exposed what the crowd believed about the building they stood in:
Their worship was only external. They trusted in the temple of the Lord. They acted as if a blessing belonged to the house itself, and as if the house would shield them from disaster... Such false trust in outward worship and religious rules is only too obvious in Christendom also. Crowds of unsaved people keep up their religious routine and think it protects them and secures the Lord's help and blessing. They trusted in lying words. They were thieves, murderers, adulterers, perjurers and idolaters. Yet they thought that going to the house of the Lord would rescue them from these abominations.
The burnt offering was the one sacrifice given wholly to God. Cut worship loose from that, and what is left is not neutral:
True worship stays tied to the offering of Christ to God — to its power, and to the awareness of how infinitely acceptable that offering is. The point here is not the putting away of sins, though without that we could not approach at all. The point is its own excellence as a burnt offering, all burnt to God as a sweet savour. The moment our worship separates itself from this, it becomes fleshly: either a form, or the delight of the flesh. If the peace offering was eaten apart from this offering of the fat, it was a mere fleshly feast. It was a form of worship with no real communion with the delight and good pleasure of God. It was worse than unacceptable — it was really iniquity.
At the exodus, God's first demand of Israel was obedience:
He brands their sacrifices as worthless. He gave no command concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices in the day He brought them out of Egypt. Destructive critics have built a childish argument on this verse. They claim that Moses did not give the law of sacrifices, and that it was introduced many centuries later. When the Lord first led them out of Egypt, He gave them no laws about sacrifices, but asked obedience. They did not listen; nor did they in Jeremiah's day.
So the temple became the target of judgment, not a shelter from it. There was already a precedent:
Shiloh was the place where the tabernacle first stood in the land (verse 12). What was Shiloh now? God had profaned it. And God would do the very same thing where the ark now stood, in the sanctuary at Jerusalem. It is impossible that God should bind Himself to maintain an empty form. The temple was a beautiful picture of His truth. But He would no longer keep it standing while the state of the people and the priests was the most offensive evil under the sun in His eye.
This verdict on sacrifice is not new with Jeremiah. It runs through the Old Testament and points to Someone else:
The Old Testament itself bore the clearest witness that animal sacrifices had no real value in the eyes of God. This Psalm is like light breaking through the mist. It declares that at least Someone would take the place of all such offerings. The Psalm says, "ears You have dug for Me." The Spirit of God interprets His own words this way: "A body You have prepared Me." Does this not imply that He would take the lowly place of the Servant, fully obedient to the Father's will, ears opened to hear His Word?
- Obedience claimed. God's first demand of Israel was obedience, not offerings. Sacrifice was never a way to cover ongoing wickedness.
- Obedience replaced. They swapped the building and the ritual for the obedience God asked. They trusted the temple to shield them while they lived as thieves, adulterers and idolaters.
- Obedience missing. Worship cut off from the offering given wholly to God is not just empty. It becomes fleshly, a form, and in God's sight iniquity. So He tells them to eat the meat themselves.
- Obedience judged. Shiloh proved God will not keep a hollow form alive for the sake of its history. The same warning stands over religion today.
- Obedience supplied. What no burnt offering could give, Christ brought — ears opened, a body prepared, coming to do God's will.
For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt;
Jeremiah's message strikes at the temple itself: the building the people trusted would not save them. Then comes a line that has puzzled readers ever since — at the exodus, burnt offerings were not what God spoke about, so what does this verse deny?
One writer traces the argument of the whole chapter. Watch what the temple has turned into.
Jeremiah 7 begins a new prophecy, focused especially on the temple. The people had no conscience about it, and wanted the temple to be their protection. Instead, it had become a further demonstration of their sin. They were to remember Shiloh, because the house of God would likewise be overthrown... He required obedience and not sacrifice, and if the people came into His house while they were practising idolatry, they only defiled it.
The point turns on timing. At the exodus itself, God asked for something other than offerings — and one writer answers a claim critics build on this verse.
He brands their sacrifices as worthless. He gave no command concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices in the day He brought them out of Egypt. Destructive critics have built a childish argument on this verse. They use it to prove that Moses did not give the law of sacrifices, and that it came in many centuries later. When the Lord first led them out of Egypt, He gave them no laws about sacrifices, but asked obedience. They did not listen; nor did they in Jeremiah's day.
One writer sets down the words God did speak at that moment, and what they asked for.
In Exodus the word of the Lord to Moses is, "This is what you shall say: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself." Then: "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice," and so on. And all the people answered together, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." I am not speaking here of their ability to keep their promise. I am speaking of the principle of obedience — the only principle on which God could deal with man, or man walk with God.
The verse does not cancel Leviticus. One commentator explains what the offerings were for, and what they were never for.
God did command such sacrifices in Exodus and Leviticus. But He did not command them because He desired such things. He commanded them simply to illustrate that these were all symbols of the one future sacrifice of Christ. Israel should at least have realised that they were only symbols. What they were symbols of, Israel no doubt did not know.
There is a historical side too. What did Israel actually bring to God in the wilderness?
As to history, we have no proof that anyone brought a single offering during the whole time they were in the wilderness. Burnt offerings were always voluntary. Given the state of Israel, it is just as likely they never gave it a thought. They sinned without any regret, and they certainly had never circumcised their children, so they really had no right to offer any sacrifice... Indeed Amos 5:25 complains that they did not offer sacrifice to Jehovah, but took Moloch and Chiun for their gods.
These worshippers kept the outward forms. One writer asks what that means for us now.
The Lord had said that He hated their appointed feasts. Why was this? Was it not because of the formal, empty way the people kept the feasts, while they themselves were defiled with sin and going on with evil? Do you not think you and I can learn a very valuable lesson from this for ourselves today? Suppose the heart is away from God, the hands are defiled with sin, and the feet are not walking in the truth. Do you think the Lord likes a correct form and fine outward worship any better?
- Temple — the building was no shelter. Like Shiloh, it would be overthrown, and worship there alongside idolatry only defiled it.
- First — at the exodus God asked for obedience, not offerings. The verse denies that sacrifices came first, not that God ever gave them.
- Symbol — God never wanted the offerings for their own sake. They pictured the one sacrifice of Christ still to come.
- Unused — Israel's wilderness years bear this out. There is no proof of offerings then, and they carried other gods instead.
- Now — the same swap is alive wherever a correct outward form covers a heart away from God and feet not walking in the truth.
but I commanded them this thing, saying, Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.
Jeremiah preached these words at the temple gate, to people who thought the building itself would save them. God points them back to what He asked for when He first brought Israel out of Egypt: not offerings, but a listening ear.
The verse looks back to the day Israel left Egypt and states what God commanded then. One writer points out what God asked for first, and answers a wrong conclusion critics have drawn from it:
He brands their sacrifices as worthless. He gave no command concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices in the day He brought them out of Egypt. Destructive critics have built a shallow argument on this verse. They use it to prove that Moses did not give the law of sacrifices, and that it came in many centuries later. When the Lord first led them out of Egypt, He gave them no laws about sacrifices, but asked obedience. They did not listen; nor did they in Jeremiah's day.
The people in Jeremiah's day were still bringing sacrifices. The problem was what they were bringing them for:
The rest of Jeremiah 7 reminds the people that obedience was what the Lord claimed, not burnt offerings to hide their sins and stubborn wickedness.
The same misplaced confidence, one writer observes, did not die with Judah:
Their worship was only external. They trusted in the temple of the Lord, as if the house itself carried some blessing and would shield them from disaster… The same false trust in outward forms and ceremonies is only too clear in the Christian world as well. Crowds of unsaved people go through their religious routines and think this protects them and guarantees the Lord's help and blessing.
One writer goes back to what God said to Moses after the Exodus, and to how the people answered:
In Exodus the word of the Lord to Moses is: "Thus you shall say, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice," and so on. And all the people answered together, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." I am not speaking here of their ability to keep what they promised. I am speaking of the principle of obedience — the only principle on which God could deal with man, or man walk with God.
The same principle reappears in judgment on a king, in the life of Christ, and in the calling of the believer:
When Saul turned away from God in 1 Samuel 15, judgment rested on the same ground — "Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice." We see the same principle, in perfection, in our Lord's constant walk. It is also the character of the believer's sanctification — sanctified to obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:2). This is the purpose, the object, of his sanctification.
"I will be your God, and you shall be my people" is the heart of the offer. One writer weighs what this promise means for Israel and what it means for Christians now:
Next, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." As this will be Israel's portion in that day, so it is ours now. More than this is ours, because we can say by the Spirit "Abba, Father," Christ's Father and our Father, Christ's God and our God. As before, it will no longer be an imposed ordinance or a possibly empty title of relationship. All is now made real, intrinsic and lasting by His grace.
The closing clause ties wellbeing to walking in the whole way God commands. One writer separates how a person is saved from how much blessing that person enjoys:
If the people honoured the Lord by submitting to His word, He would bless them in the way described — in the land, and with earthly blessings that matched the covenant they lived under. It is different with Christians. Pure unconditional grace saves them. But once saved, their blessing and their enjoyment of spiritual blessing depend on their walk, on obedience to the Word. We must always insist on this. They do not obey to be saved… but God has brought them to Himself through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and their blessing during their stay in this world depends on their subjection to the mind and will of God.
- Voice first. At the Exodus God asked for a listening ear, not for offerings. Sacrifices were never meant to cover disobedience.
- Voice as the only ground. Obedience is the one principle on which God could deal with man, or man walk with God — broken in Saul, perfect in Christ, and the aim of the believer's sanctification.
- Voice refused, form kept. Judah's worship was external; they treated the temple as a shield. Writers apply the same warning to religious observance today.
- Voice answered by relationship. The promise attached is God Himself: not an imposed ordinance or an empty title, but a bond made real and lasting by grace.
- Voice obeyed, wellbeing enjoyed. Christians are not saved by obeying. But their subjection to God's word decides how much of their blessing they enjoy.