I.C.3. Schelhaas, J. "II Samuel 7:1-5," in The Law and the Prophets. J. Skilton, Editor.

Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974, 283-297.

"Do all that is in your heart (doe al wat in uw hart is) gives the king complete freedom. The prophet means here that David should execute all that he thinks of, reflects, proposes about the ark's abode. The heart is here the seat of the considerations, contemplations, intentions, decisions. The reason Nathan gives is that Yahweh is with the king. That is really evident in his whole course of life. According to Nathan, this ground is sufficient for the execution of this plan and the advice he gives. That Yahweh is with David is absolutely true. But that Nathan makes a mistake about the consequences, he will soon find out ... This does not imply that the king's intention as such should be rejected. For in 1 Kings 8:18 Solomon says that the Lord said to his father David: that you had the intention to build a house for My Name, you did well that you had this intention.

"But the prophet should first have waited for God's revelation. A good intention does not always mean that we are allowed to execute it. That Nathan too desired a temple for the God of Israel was not wrong in itself. The mistake made here was that he spoke as man and not as prophet, while his opinion as a prophet had been specifically asked for."

I.F. Freeman, H. E. An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets. Chicago: Moody,

1968, 28-34.

"What then were the true function and purpose of the sons of the prophets? In attempting to answer this question it will be well to note their function in those passages where they are mentioned in Scripture: (1) They are depicted as residing together in common dwellings at religious centers like Gilgal, Bethel and Jericho, sitting before a great prophet. We are perhaps warranted in supposing that spiritual instruction was imparted to them (II Kings 4:38; 6:1; 1 Sam. 19:20). (2) Another of the spiritual functions of these groups was that of prophesying together (1 Sam. 10:5 ff.). Just what this prophesying was and what form it took, has been the subject of much speculation. First Samuel 10 seems to indicate that a part of it was the singing and chanting of praises to God. The band of prophets was descending from the high place where they had participated in some form of religious observance, and they were prophesying accompanied by musical instruments. Evidence that this was an accepted method of prophetic expression is clear from 1 Chronicles 25:1-3. Thus the groups would not simply prophesy as individuals, but jointly in a body, or in a procession, at various places in public praise and worship. (3) They also acted as spiritual messengers in important matters pertaining to Israel. This is seen when Elisha sent one of the sons of the prophets to anoint Jehu king of Israel (II Kings 9:1), and again when God sent another as a messenger of judgment to speak His word of rebuke to King Ahab for his leniency in dealing with Ben-hadad (I Kings 20:35-43).

Young, E. J. My Servants the Prophets. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 83- 94.

"It should be very carefully noted, however, that there is not a hint in the text to suggest that the prophesying was brought on by the music, as though the music were a stimulant. The musical instruments were carried before the prophets, and the implication given is that they were employed merely by way of accompaniment. Hence, the prophesying in which these men engaged was not a meaningless raving, but rather a devout praising of God to the accompaniment of music.

"If we employ the word "ecstasy" to describe the prophets, we must use the word with care. That they were under the compelling influence of the Spirit of God, there can be no doubt, for it is said to Saul that when he meets the prophets, the Spirit of Jehovah will rush upon him and he will prophesy with them. The fulfillment of this prediction is related as follows: "And the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied in their midst" (I Samuel 10:10b). From this it appears that the act of prophesying in this particular instance was a result of the rushing upon of the Spirit. God's Spirit came upon the prophet, and the result was that he prophesied. The source of the "ecstatic" condition, therefore, is not to be found in the presence of music, nor of voluntary association, nor in contagion, nor for that matter in any self-imposed or induced stimuli, but only in the "rushing upon" of the Spirit of God."

II.D. Vos, G. Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948 (reset for Ninth Printing, 1975), 191-197.

"With this enquiry into the meaning of nabhi' we may combine a brief discussion of its Greek equivalent, prophetes, from which our word prophet has come. We associate with this mostly the idea of 'foreteller'. This is not in accord with the original Greek etymology. The preposition 'pro' in the composition does not express the time-sense of 'beforehand'. It has local significance; the prophetes is a forth-teller. The Greek term, however, has religious associations no less than the Hebrew one. Prophetes is the one who speaks for the oracle. Thus it might seem, that with the 'pro' correctly understood, the Hebrew nabhi' and the Greek prophetes were practically synonyms. This, however, would be misleading. The Greek prophetes does not stand in the same direct relation to the deity as the Hebrew nabhi' does. In reality he is the interpreter of the oracular, dark utterances of the Pythia, or some other inspired person, whom, from the depth underneath, the godhead of the shrine inspires. The Pythia would thus stand at the same remove from deity as the nabhi', but the prophetes is separated from the deity by this intervening person. Prophetes is therefore rather an interpreter than a mouth-piece of what the god speaks through the one he directly inspires. He adds of his own, not merely the illumination of the oracle, but also the form in which he clothes the meaning apperceived ... (pp. 194,195).

"It is no wonder, then, that the word prophetes, taken into the service of Biblical religion, had to undergo a baptism of regeneration, before it could be properly used."

II.D.1 Albright, W. F. From the Stone Age to Christianity. Doubleday Anchor Books. Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1957 , 303-305.

"The current explanation of the word nabhi' "prophet," as "speaker, announcer," is almost certainly false. The correct etymological meaning of the word is rather "one who is called (by God"), one who has a vocation (from God)," as appears from the fact that this is almost always the sense which the verb nabu "to call," has in Accadian, from the middle of the third millennium to the middle of the first. The king is repeatedly termed "the one whom the great gods (or a special high god) have called." Using a noun (nibitu) derived from this verb, the king is styled "the one called by the great gods, etc." The verbal adjective nabi' means "called," in the Code of Hammurabi. All Hebrew verbal forms from this root are transparent denominatives from the noun nabhi', and throw no light whatever on the derivation of the latter. This interpretation of the word suits its meaning exactly; the prophet was a man who felt himself called by God for a special mission, in which his will was subordinated to the will of God, which was communicated to him by direct inspiration. The prophet was thus a charismatic spiritual leader, directly commissioned by Yahweh to warn the people of the perils of sin and to preach reform and revival of true religion and morality."

Meek, T. J. Hebrew Origins. Harper Torchbooks. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, 150.

"The third word for prophet is the one that became the most popular of all and almost wholly replaced the older term ro'eh. It is nabi', from a root not found in Hebrew, but found in Akkadian as nabu, "to call, to call out, to speak." It accordingly means "speaker, spokesman (of God," and is correctly translated in the Septuagint by the Greek profhth , a noun derived from the preposition pro, "for, in behalf of," and the verb fhmi "to speak." Hence the prophet of the nabi' type was strictly not a "foreteller," as is popularly supposed, but a "forthteller, preacher," and this was the meaning of "prophet" in English until after the time of Queen Elizabeth, when for some reason the term came to be equated with foretelling, predicting. For example, a book by Jeremy Taylor published in 1647, entitled The Liberty of Prophesying, is not what the present connotation of the words would lead one to think; it is a book on freedom of speech--in modern language, "The Freedom of Preaching." Accordingly, the strict meaning of the word "prophet" in English and its meaning in the original Greek and Hebrew is "speaker, spokesman"; and this is made absolutely certain by such a passage as Ex. 7:1, where Yahweh says to Moses: "See, I make you a god to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall serve as your spokesman (your nabi')." Note also Ex 4:16: "He [Aaron] shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouthpiece for you, and you shall act the part of god to him [lit., he shall be to you for a mouth, and you shall be to him for a god]." That is, the prophet was a spokesman, the mouthpiece of God; "man of God" he is often called; he was an oracle possessed by the spirit of God."

II.E. Young, E. J. My Servants the Prophets. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 62, 63, 105-124.

"In the Septuagint, a different reading appears. "And formerly in Israel, thus spake each man when he went to enquire of God, Come, let us go to the Seer, because the people formerly called the prophet 'The Seer.'" The reading of the Septuagint may easily be explained. It has substituted "the people" for "today." It is not to be preferred above the Hebrew text, and therefore, we shall base our discussion upon the Hebrew rather than the Septuagint ...

"For our part we are unable to see that the passage in I Samuel 9, although it employs the two words, yet makes a distinction between two types of men of God. Certainly it would be wrong to say that the expression nabhi was taken up into the Hebrew language only after this time. For it should be noted that, in this very context (I Samuel 10:5) Samuel himself uses the word. Further, the expression occurs in the Pentateuch in passages which are earlier than the present one. The key to the difficulty has been pointed out by Konig, although it is not necessary to follow him in his preference of the Septuagint over the Hebrew. It is that ro'eh was the prevailing popular designation of a man of God. When Saul, an ordinary country lad, met the maidens coming to draw water, he enquired of them as to the presence of the ro'eh. In Saul's days people used such a designation to indicate the prophet. The technical name of the name of God was nabhi, but the people commonly spoke of him as ro'eh."

III.A.1 Tucker, G. M. "Prophecy and the Prophetic Literature," in The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters. D. A. Knight and G. M. Tucker, editors. Chicago: Scholars Press, 1985, 346, 347.

"Malamat was more specific in his definition of the Mari "diviner-prophets," and more cautious about the parallels with the OT. He saw them as parallel to the prophets of the OT in their consciousness of mission and their willingness to speak uninvited to the authorities in the name of the god, but "the all-too obvious gap is apparent in the essence of the prophetic message and in the destiny assigned to the prophet's mission" (208). The Mari oracles address the ruler or his representatives--and not the nation as a whole--and express material concerns or local patriotism (208)."

"The most recent major treatment of the Mari texts, and also one of the most careful, is that of Noort, who is not at all convinced that the Mari "prophets" were the predecessors of those known from the OT or even that the two were related. In at least the last point he certainly goes too far, for the two are phenomenologically if not historically related. Whether or not one accepts his conclusion that the Mari oracles are basically unlike OT prophecy, he has presented a very useful analysis of the various means of revelation at Mari and of the roles of both the speakers and their addressees. The messages are quite diverse, but they have in common the communication of a word of a god in a situation of crisis."

III.A.2 Albright, W. F. From the Stone Age to Christianity. Garden City: Doubleday, 1957, 186.

ÒSomewhat later is the prophecy of Nefer-rehu, which is extremely interesting as the oldest certain example of a vaticinium ex eventu, since it purports to date from the reign of Snefru of the Fourth Dynasty, but describes in some detail events from the reign of Ameni (Amenemmes), the founder of the Twelfth Dynasty six centuries later.Ó

Young, E. J. My Servants the Prophets. Appendix: "Extra-Biblical 'Prophecy' in the

Ancient World." Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 193-205.

"One must notice the utter lack of seriousness in this text. The king is seeking merely for entertainment, and so he desires to be informed concerning the future. Nefer-Rohu makes no pretense of being a prophet; in fact, he even states that he cannot foretell the future. Furthermore, the text states that it is dealing with the message of Nefer-Rohu, as he brooded over what would happen in the land. In other words the message is not a revealed one, nor does it purport to be. It is in a class with the many "predictions" of the ancient world, and far removed from the prophecies of the Old Testament" (203).

Smith, G. V. "Prophet." ISBE (rev. ed.), vol. 3, 989.

"The "prophecy of Nefer-rohu" purports to tell how Pharaoh Snefru of the 4th Dynasty was entertained by a prophet who predicted that chaos would soon overtake Egypt, but that order and justice would be reestablished when Ameni of Nubia (a reference to Amen-em-hep I, the first king of the 12th Dynasty) became king (ANET, pp. 444-46). The so-called prophecy undoubtedly was written as political propaganda to support the rule of Amen-em-hep I (see W. K. Simpson, ed., Literature of Ancient Egypt (1973), pp. 234-240)."

III.A.3 Kuenen, A. The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel. Amsterdam, Philo Press, 1969 (original Dutch edition, 1875), 555.

"It would of course be very desirable that we should be able to speak with certainty upon such an important question as this. But from the want of historical accounts we must rest content with probable conjectures, which have this recommendation besides, that they give us a satisfactory explanation of the first appearance of prophecy in Israel."

von Rad, G. Old Testament Theology. Vol. 2. New York, Harper & Row, 1965,

8.

"In eleventh-century Syria and Palestine there are signs of the rise of an ecstatic and mantic movement whose origins are apparently outside that area, and perhaps lie in the mantic of Thrace and Asia Minor. Canaanite religion must, then, have been the medium by which the movement came to Israel. The earliest Old Testament evidence for its appearance are the accounts of the Dervish-like enthusiasts who from time to time emerged up and down the land, probably to be eyed askance by the settled Israelite farmers (I Sam. x. 5ff.)."

III.C. Freeman, H. E. An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets. Chicago: Moody, 1968, 26.

"Moses, in Deuteronomy 18, declares that God would establish the Hebrew prophetic institution, which as a type would one day culminate in the ideal Prophet, the antitype, Jesus Christ. The prophetic institution was to be a type of "sign" of the God-anointed Prophet (Christ), after the same manner that the priesthood, or priests, were a sign of God's anointed Priest as depicted in Zechariah 3:8;"

Young, E. J. My Servants the Prophets. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 20-35.

"At this point it may be well to pause and summarize the results of the study thus far. Deuteronomy eighteen, we have learned seems to contain a double reference.

"1. There was to be a body of prophets, an institution, which would declare the words that God commanded.

"2. There was to be one great prophet, who alone would be like Moses and might be compared with him, namely, the Messiah.

"The question now arises as to the relationship between these two emphases. Some have held that we are to understand a collection or group of prophets to which Christ would also belong, as the perfect realization of the prophetic body. This however, is not a legitimate thought to derive from the words. It is far better, because more faithful to the text, to regard the prophet as an ideal person in whom are comprehended all true prophets. The prophetical order is thus an ideal unity, which is to find its focus point in the historic Christ. For the Spirit of Christ was in all the true prophets. When finally Christ appeared upon earth, the promise was fulfilled in its highest and fullest sense. It is, therefore, a Messianic promise."

IV.B.2.b. Young, E. J. My Servants the Prophets. Chapter 9. "The Prophets as Recipients of Revelation." Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952, 70, 71, 75, 161-190.

"From this we learn that in certain cases, the word nabhi might have a wider connotation than that of declaring a message for God. At least in this passage it (and its denominative verb) may indicate those who are engaged in abnormal behaviour."

V.A.2. Vos, G. "The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological

Discipline." In Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation. The

Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos. R. B. Gaffin, Jr., Editor. Phillipsburg:

Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980, 14.

"For, God having chosen to reveal the truth through human instruments, it follows that these instruments must be both numerous and of varied adaptation to the common end. Individual coloring, therefore, and a peculiar manner of representation are not only not detrimental to a full statement of the truth, but directly subservient to it. God's method of revelation includes the very shaping and chiselling of individualities for His own objective ends. To put it concretely: we must not conceive of it as if God found Paul "ready-made," as it were, and in using Paul as an organ of revelation, had to put up with the fact that the dialectic mind of Paul reflected the truth in a dialectic, dogmatic form to the detriment of the truth. The facts are these: the truth having inherently, besides other aspects, a dialectic and dogmatic side, and God intending to give this side full expression, chose Paul from the womb, molded his character, and gave him such a training that the truth revealed through him necessarily bore the dogmatic and dialectic impress of His mind. The divine objectivity and the human individuality here do not collide, nor exclude each other, because the man Paul, with his whole character, his gifts, and his training, is subsumed under the divine plan. The human is but the glass through which the divine light is reflected, and all the sides and angles into which the glass has been cut serve no other purpose than to distribute to us the truth in all the riches of its prismatic colors."

V.C.2.a.2) Eichrodt, W. Theology of the Old Testament. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Westminster,

1961, 17, 51ff.

"The crucial point is not--as an all too naive criticism sometimes seems to think--the occurrence or absence of the Hebrew word b'rit, but the fact that all crucial statements of faith in the OT rest on the assumption, explicit or not, that a free act of God in history raised Israel to the unique dignity of the People of God, in whom his nature and purpose were to be made manifest. The actual term 'covenant' is, therefore, so to speak, only the code-word for a much more far-reaching certainty, which formed the very deepest layer of the foundations of Israel's faith, and without which indeed Israel would not have been Israel at all."

V.C.2.c. Vos, G. Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948 (reset, ninth printing

1975), 186.

"To this kingdom-producing movement the rise and development of prophetism attach themselves. The prophets were guardians of the unfolding theocracy, and the guardianship was exercised at its centre, the kingdom. The purpose was to keep it a true representation of the kingdom of Jehovah. It sometimes almost appears as if the prophets were sent to the kings instead of to the people."

VI.B.1. Freeman, H. E. An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets. Chicago: Moody

Press, 1968, 104.

"False prophets were characterized by their low morality; hence, true and false prophets could be distinguished by a personal or intrinsic test. The false prophet was a mercenary who prophesied for hire (Micah 3:5, 11); he was a drunkard (Isa. 28:7); he was profane and wicked (Jer. 23:11); he conspired with others to deceive and defraud (Ezek. 22:25); he was light and treacherous (Zeph. 3:4); he committed adultery, walked in lies and supported the evildoers (Jer. 23:14); and he was generally immoral in life and conduct (Jer. 23:15).

"The false prophet was, moreover, a religious opportunist, prophesying only what the degenerate people wished to hear (Isa. 30:10-11; Micah 2:11); he proclaimed an optimistic message of peace and prosperity (Ezek. 13:1-16; Jer. 14:13; 23:17; Micah 3:5); he often practiced divination (Ezek. 22:28; Jer. 14:14), and prophesied lies out of his own heart (Ezek. 13:2; Jer. 23:16). Thus, in a real sense, the moral character of the prophet himself would attest to his authority. He who professed a divine commission from the holy God of Israel must reflect a conduct and character consistent with that claim (cf. Matt. 7:15-20)."

VI.B.5. Bavinck, H. Gereformeerde Dogmatiek. Vol. 1. Kampen: Kok, 1918, 403,

512.

"Revelation, taken as a whole, first reached its end and purpose in the coming of Christ. But it falls in two great periods, in two distinguishable dispensations. The first period served to ingraft the full revelation of God into the history of humanity. The entire economy can be considered as a coming of God to his people, as a seeking of a tabernacle for Christ. It is thus predominantly a revelation of God in Christ. It bears an objective character. It is characterized by extraordinary acts, theophanies, prophecy and miracles are the ways by which God comes to his people. Christ is the content and the middle point of it. He is the Logos, that shines in the darkness, comes to his own and becomes flesh in Jesus. The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Christ was not yet glorified (John 7:39). In this period the inscripturating was in step with the revelation. Both grew from century to century. To the degree that the revelation progressed the Scripture increased in scope. When in Christ the full revelation of God is given, theophany, prophecy and wonder have reached their high point in Him and the grace of God in Christ has appeared to all men, then at the same time, there is also the completion of the Scripture. Christ in his person and work has fully revealed the Father to us, therefore that revelation is fully described for us in the Scripture. The economy of the Son gives way to the economy of the Spirit. The objective revelation goes over into the subjective application. In Christ an organic center is created by God in the midst of history, from out of this center the light of revelation shines in constantly wider circles.. . . The Holy Spirit takes all from Christ, He adds nothing new to the revelation. This is complete and therefore not capable of enlargement. Christ is the Word, full of grace and truth; his work is complete; the Father himself rests in his work. His work cannot be added to or enlarged by the good works of the saints, his word not by tradition, his person not by the pope. In Christ God has fully revealed himself and given himself fully, therefore the Scripture is also complete, it is the complete Word of God.

"But even though revelation is complete - her work does not cease."

"The Reformation confessed the perfection and sufficiency of the Scripture . . . over against the Roman doctrine of tradition . . . this characteristic of the Scripture must be well understood (520). With this it is not claimed that everything which was spoken or written by the prophets, Christ and the apostles has been included in the Scripture; there are many prophecies and apostolic writings which have been lost to us; Num 21:14; Jos 10:13; 1 Kgs 4:33; 1 Chron 29:29; . . . 1 Cor 5:9; Col 4:16; Phil 3:1, and Jesus and the apostles did many more signs and spoke many more words that are recorded (John 20:30; 1 Cor 11:2, 14 . . .) This characteristic also does not claim that the Scripture contains all the customs, ceremonies and regulations which the church needs for her organization, but only that it contains completely the articles of faith, that which is necessary for salvation. . . . The sufficiency of the Holy Scripture flows also forth out of the nature of the N.T. dispensation. Christ became flesh and completed his work. He is the last and highest revelation of God. He declared the Father to us, John 1:18; 17:4, 6. By him has God in the last days spoken to us, Heb. 1:1. He is the highest, the only prophet . . . When Jesus completed his work he sent the Holy Spirit who does not add something new to the revelation, but leads the people of God in the truth, John 16:12-15, till they come to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, Eph 3:18, 19; 4:13."

Vos, G. Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948 (reset ninth printing 1975), 5, 6.

"[1] The historic progressiveness of the revelation-process. It has not completed itself in one exhaustive act, but unfolded itself in a long series of successive acts. In the abstract, it might conceivably have been otherwise. But as a matter of fact this could not be, because revelation does not stand alone by itself, but is (so far as Special Revelation is concerned) inseparably attached to another activity of God, which we call Redemption. Now redemption could not be otherwise than historically successive, because it addresses itself to the generations of mankind coming into existence in the course of history. Revelation is the interpretation of redemption; it must, therefore, unfold itself in instalments as redemption does. And yet it is also obvious that the two processes are not entirely co-extensive, for revelation comes to a close at a point where redemption still continues. In order to understand this, we must take into account an important distinction within the sphere of redemption itself. Redemption is partly objective and central, partly subjective and individual. By the former we designate those redeeming acts of God, which take place on behalf of, but outside of, the human person. By the latter we designate those acts of God which enter into the human subject. We call the objective acts central, because, happening in the centre of the circle of redemption, they concern all alike, and are not in need of, or capable of, repetition. Such objective-central acts are the incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection of Christ. The acts in the subjective sphere are called individual, because they are repeated in each individual separately. Such subjective-individual acts as regeneration, justification, conversion, sanctification, glorification. Now revelation accompanies the process of objective-central redemption only, and this explains why redemption extends further than revelation. To insist upon its accompanying subjective-individual redemption would imply that it dealt with questions of private, personal concern, instead of with the common concerns of the world of redemption collectively. Still this does not mean that the believer cannot, for his subjective experience, receive enlightenment from the source of revelation in the Bible, for we must remember that continually, alongside the objective process, there was going on the work of subjective application, and that much of this is reflected in the Scriptures. Subjective-individual redemption did not first begin when objective-central redemption ceased; it existed alongside of it from the beginning.

"There lies only one epoch in the future when we may expect objective-central redemption to be resumed, viz., at the Second Coming of Christ. At that time there will take place great redemptive acts concerning the world and the people of God collectively. These will add to the volume of truth which we now possess."

VII.A.1. Kohler, L. Old Testament Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957

(translated from third revised German edition, 1953), 72, 181, 182.

"This cult is however no new thing and not of Israel's creation; less still is it a revelation from Jahweh. It is an annexation of the traditional cult of the conquered land."

"Just because the cult is a bit of ethnic life the prophets are always setting question marks against it, doubting its propriety, rejecting it. "Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years?" Amos 5:25. This question expects "no" for an answer, which historically is wrong but which is correct to this extent--that it was not God but men who instituted the cult. We say the cult, for in the Old Testament the cult is almost identical with the sacrifices; there is little more to it than that, above all there is hardly any proclamation of the word. "I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices", Jer. 7:22. The statement is unambiguous and unconditional. The sacrificial system does not owe its origin to God. His will is operative only in the regulation of it. "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams. When ye come to see my face, who hath required this at your hand?" Isa. 1:11-12. Many more passages of this sort might be quoted, and they are important."

VII.A.3. Allis, O. T. The Five Books of Moses. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and

Reformed Publishing Company, 1949, 170-173.

"The reason for the startling words we have just considered is given in words almost equally surprising: "For I spake not unto your fathers nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning [AV, ARV] burnt-offerings or sacrifices." These words seem at first glance to bear out fully the claim of the critics that Jeremiah knew nothing about a sacrificial system introduced by Moses at the time of the Exodus. But such a conclusion rests upon the failure of the English translation to do justice to the ambiguity of the Hebrew words rendered "concerning"; and particularly to the fact that, as is made clear by a study of the usage, they may also be rendered by "because of" or "for the sake of." ...

"It is obvious that if in Jer. vii.22 we employ the stronger rendering "because of" or "for the sake of," this verse not merely ceases to support the inference which the critics base upon it, but it becomes exceedingly appropriate in the context. The Lord does not say to Israel that He gave no commands to their fathers concerning sacrifice. At first the people listening to Jeremiah might think that was his meaning. But a moment's reflection would convince them that such could not be the true purport of his words. What Jehovah meant was that He did not speak to their fathers for the sake of sacrifices, as if He needed them and would suffer hunger unless He were fed by these grudging offerings of sinful men who had no conception of the real relation in which they stood to Him. The language appears to be intentionally ambiguous, even startlingly so. But the words, "Put your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices and eat ye flesh" are intended to give the clue to their meaning. Then after pointing out in this striking way that God has no need of the sacrifices of His creatures, the prophet goes on to declare that obedience was the real aim and requirement of the Sinaitic legislation."