Jeremias 7:21

21 Thus saith the Lord, Gather your whole-burnt-offerings with your meat-offerings, and eat flesh.

Jeremias 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.

Jeremias 7:21 In-Context

19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not themselves, that their faces may be ashamed?

20 Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, my anger and wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and upon the men, and upon the cattle, and upon every tree of their field, and upon the fruits of the land; and it shall burn, and not be quenched.

21 Thus saith the Lord, Gather your whole-burnt-offerings with your meat-offerings, and eat flesh.

22 For I spoke not to your fathers, and commanded them not in the day wherein I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole-burnt-offerings and sacrifice:

23 but I commanded them this thing, saying, Hear ye my voice, and I will be to you a God, and ye shall be to me a people: and walk ye in all my ways which I shall command you, that it may be well with you.