Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Isaiah 66:3
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man - Lowth and Noyes render this, ‘He that slayeth an ox, killeth a man.’ This is a literal translation of the Hebrew. Jerome renders it, ‘He who sacrifices an ox is as if (quasi) he slew a man.’ The Septuagint, in a very free translation - such as is common in their version of Isaiah - render it, ‘The wicked man who sacrifices a calf, is as he who kills a dog; and he who offers to me fine flour, it is as the blood of swine.’ Lowth supposes the sense to be, that the most flagitious crimes were united with hypocrisy, and that they who were guilty of the most extreme acts of wickedness at the same time affected great strictness in the performance of all the external duties of religion. An instance of this, he says, is referred to by Ezekiel, where he says, ‘When they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it’ Ezekiel 23:39. There can be no doubt that such offences were often committed by those who were very strict and zealous in their religious services (compare Isaiah 1:11-14, with Isaiah 66:21-23. But the generality of interpreters have supposed that a different sense was to be affixed to this passage. According to their views, the particles as if are to be supplied; and the sense is, not that the mere killing of an ox is as sinful in the sight of God as deliberate murder, but that he who did it in the circumstances, and with the spirit referred to, evinced a spirit as odious in his sight as though he had slain a man. So the Septuagint, Vulgate, Chaldee, Symmachus, and Theodotion, Junius, and Tremellius, Grotius, and Rosenmuller, understand it. There is probably an allusion to the fact that human victims were offered by the pagan; and the sense is, that the sacrifices here referred to were no more acceptable in the sight of God than they were. The prophet here refers, probably, first, to the spirit with which this was done. Their sacrifices were offered with a temper of mind as offensive to God as if a man had been slain, and they had been guilty of murder. They were proud, vain, and hypocritical. ‘They had forgotten the true nature and design of sacrifice, and such worship could not but be an abhorrence in the sight of God. Secondly, It may also be implied here, that the period was coming when all sacrifices would be unacceptable to God. When the Messiah should have come; when he should have made by one offering a sufficent atonement for the sins of the whole world; then all bloody sacrifices would be needless, and would be offensive in the sight of God. The sacrifice of an ox would be no more acceptable than the sacrifice of a man; and all offerings with a view to propitiate the divine favor, or that implied that there was a deficiency in the merit of the one great atoning sacrifice, would be odious to God. He that sacrificeth a lamb - Margin, ‘Kid’ The Hebrew word (שׂה s'eh) may refer to one of a flock, either of sheep or goats Genesis 22:7-8; Genesis 30:32. Where the species is to be distinguished, it is usually specified, as, e. g., Deuteronomy 14:4, כשׂבים שׂה עזים ושׂה ves'ēh ‛ı̂zzym s'ēh kı̂s'âbı̂ym (one of the sheep and one of the goats). Both were used in sacrifice. As if he cut off a dog’s neck - That is, as if he had cut off a dog’s neck for sacrifice. To offer a dog in sacrifice would have been abominable in the view of a Jew. Even the price for which he was sold was not permitted to be brought into the house of God fo…
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