Ulangan 12:7

12:7 Both you and your families ¹  must feast there before the Lord your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he ²  has blessed you.

Ulangan 26:14

26:14 I have not eaten anything when I was in mourning, or removed any of it while ceremonially unclean, or offered any of it to the dead; ³  I have obeyed you ⁴  and have done everything you have commanded me.

Ulangan 26:1

Presentation of the First Fruits

26:1 When ⁵  you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you occupy it and live in it,

1 Samuel 1:7-8

1:7 Peninnah ⁶  would behave this way year after year. Whenever Hannah ⁷  went up to the Lord’s house, Peninnah ⁸  would upset her so that she would weep and refuse to eat. 1:8 Finally her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep and not eat? Why are you so sad? ⁹  Am I not better to you than ten ¹⁰  sons?”

Yesaya 1:11

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

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with ¹²  burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want. ¹³ 

Yesaya 1:15

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ¹⁴ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 6:20

6:20 I take no delight ¹⁶  when they offer up to me ¹⁷ 

frankincense that comes from Sheba

or sweet-smelling cane imported from a faraway land.

I cannot accept the burnt offerings they bring me.

I get no pleasure from the sacrifices they offer to me.’ ¹⁸ 

Yeremia 14:12

14:12 Even if they fast, I will not hear their cries for help. Even if they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. ¹⁹  Instead, I will kill them through wars, famines, and plagues.” ²⁰ 

Hosea 9:4

9:4 They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord;

they will not please him with their sacrifices.

Their sacrifices will be like bread eaten while in mourning;

all those who eat them will make themselves ritually unclean.

For their bread will be only to satisfy their appetite;

it will not come into the temple of the Lord.

Maleakhi 1:10

1:10 “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, ²¹  so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you.

Maleakhi 1:13

1:13 You also say, ‘How tiresome it is.’ You turn up your nose at it,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and instead bring what is stolen, lame, or sick. You bring these things for an offering! Should I accept this from you?” ²²  asks the Lord.

Maleakhi 2:13

2:13 You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears ²³  as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you.

Filipi 4:4

4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!

[12:7]  ¹ tn Heb “and your houses,” referring to entire households. The pronouns “you” and “your” are plural in the Hebrew text.

[12:7]  ² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 12:5.

[26:14]  ³ sn These practices suggest overtones of pagan ritual, all of which the confessor denies having undertaken. In Canaan they were connected with fertility practices associated with harvest time. See E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy (NAC), 335-36.

[26:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord my God.” See note on “he” in 26:2.

[26:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “and it will come to pass that.”

[1:7]  ⁶ tn The MT has a masculine form of the verb here יַעֲשֶׂה (ya’aseh, “he used to do”); the subject in that case would presumably be Elkanah. But this leads to an abrupt change of subject in the following part of the verse, where the subject is the rival wife who caused Hannah anxiety. In light of v. 6 one expects the statement of v. 7 to refer to the ongoing actions of the rival wife: “she used to behave in this way year after year.” Some scholars have proposed retaining the masculine form but changing the vocalization of the verb so as to read a Niphal rather than a Qal (i.e., יֵעֲשֶׂה, ye’aseh, “so it used to be done”). But the problem here is lack of precedent for such a use of the Niphal of this verb. It seems best in light of the context to understand the reference to be to Hannah’s rival Peninnah and to read here, with the Syriac Peshitta, a feminine form of the verb (“she used to do”). In the translation the referent (Peninnah) has been specified for clarity.

[1:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “she”; the referent (Hannah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “she”; the referent (Peninnah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “why is your heart displeased?”

[1:8]  ¹⁰ sn Like the number seven, the number ten is sometimes used in the OT as an ideal number (see, for example, Dan 1:20, Zech 8:23).

[1:11]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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.

[1:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ¹⁵ 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.

[6:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “To what purpose is it to me?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[6:20]  ¹⁷ tn The words “when they offer up to me” are not in the text but are implicit from the following context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:20]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Your burnt offerings are not acceptable and your sacrifices are not pleasing to me.” “The shift from “your” to “their” is an example of the figure of speech (apostrophe) where the speaker turns from talking about someone to addressing him/her directly. Though common in Hebrew style, it is not common in English. The shift to the third person in the translation is an accommodation to English style.

[14:12]  ¹⁹ sn See 6:16-20 for parallels.

[14:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “through sword, starvation, and plague.”

[14:12]  sn These were penalties (curses) that were to be imposed on Israel for failure to keep her covenant with God (cf. Lev 26:23-26). These three occur together fourteen other times in the book of Jeremiah.

[1:10]  ²¹ sn The rhetorical language suggests that as long as the priesthood and people remain disobedient, the temple doors may as well be closed because God is not “at home” to receive them or their worship there.

[1:13]  ²² tn Heb “from your hand,” a metonymy of part (the hand) for whole (the person).

[2:13]  ²³ sn You cover the altar of the Lord with tears. These tears are the false tears of hypocrisy, not genuine tears of repentance. The people weep because the Lord will not hear them, not because of their sin.