Jeremiah 7:21

21 Thus hath the LORD of the hosts, the God of Israel said: Add your burnt offerings upon your sacrifices and eat flesh.

Jeremiah 7:21 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 7:21

Thus saith the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel
The Lord of armies above and below, and the covenant God of the people of Israel; who were bound to serve him, not only by the laws of creation, and the bounties of Providence, but were under obligation so to do by the distinguishing blessings of his goodness bestowed upon them; wherefore their idolatry, and other sins committed against him, were the more heinous and aggravated: put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh;
that is, add one offering to another; offer every kind of sacrifice, and, when you have done, eat the flesh of them yourselves; for that is all the advantage that comes by them; they are not acceptable to me, as Jarchi observes, therefore why should you lose them? burnt offerings were wholly consumed, and nothing was left of them to eat; but of other sacrifices there were, particularly the peace offerings; which the Jewish commentators think are here meant by sacrifices; and therefore the people are bid to join them together, that they might have flesh to eat; which was all the profit arising to them by legal sacrifices. The words seem to be sarcastically spoken; showing the unacceptableness of legal sacrifices to God, when sin was indulged, and the unprofitableness of them to men.

Jeremiah 7:21 In-Context

19 Shall they provoke me to anger? said the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?
20 Therefore thus hath the Lord GOD said: Behold, my anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man and upon beast and upon the trees of the field and upon the fruit of the ground, and it shall burn and shall not be quenched.
21 Thus hath the LORD of the hosts, the God of Israel said: Add your burnt offerings upon your sacrifices and eat flesh.
22 For I did not speak unto your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
23 But this thing I commanded them, saying, Hear my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you that it may be well unto you.
The Jubilee Bible (from the Scriptures of the Reformation), edited by Russell M. Stendal, Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010