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Isaiah 1 · a question people ask

Did the LORD reject the sacrifices and feasts his own law commanded?

In the text

The chapter says what the LORD won't accept, and what it sets beside it. He calls them "your sacrifices" (1:11), "your New Moons and your appointed feasts" (1:14), and says, "I can’t stand evil assemblies" (1:13). Then comes "Your hands are full of blood" (1:15), and the commands that follow are not about offerings at all: "Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek justice" (1:16-17). The chapter doesn't take up whether the offerings of the law were wrong in themselves. Other Scripture also sets offerings beside obedience: Samuel said, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Samuel 15:22). Numbers 28's notes set Isaiah 1:13-15 beside the new moons and Sabbaths of the law, and Psalm 51's notes set out "For you don’t delight in sacrifice" (Psalm 51:16); these notes don't repeat them.

The verses

“Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the LORD’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.”
1 Samuel 15:22 · World English Bible
““‘In the beginnings of your months, you shall offer a burnt offering to the LORD: two young bulls, one ram, seven male lambs a year old without defect,”
Numbers 28:11 · World English Bible
“For you don’t delight in sacrifice, or else I would give it. You have no pleasure in burnt offering.”
Psalm 51:16 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 1

Isaiah 1: Let's reason together

Isaiah opens by calling heaven and earth to listen with the same four Hebrew words as Moses' song (Deuteronomy 32:1). In "let’s reason together" (1:18), reason is yakach, the verb of deciding and proving. And "the faithful city" (1:21) and "a faithful town" (1:26) are the same two Hebrew words, found together nowhere else.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions