Jeremiah 7:21

21 Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat ye the 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 Do they provoke me to anger, saith the Lord? is it not themselves, to the confusion of their own countenance?
20 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold my wrath and my indignation is enkindled against this place, upon men and upon beasts, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruits of the land, and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.
21 Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat ye the flesh.
22 For I spoke not to your fathers, and I commanded them not, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offerings and sacrifices.
23 But this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.
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