"For Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it Thee:
Thou delightest not in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
A broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise."[356]
And again:—
"Sacrifice and offering Thou hast no delight in;
Mine ears hast thou opened:
Burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required."[357]
And again:—
"To do justice and judgment
Is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice."[358]
And again:—
"I will praise the name of God with a song,
And magnify it with thanksgiving.
This also shall please the Lord
Rather than a bullock that hath horns and hoofs."[359]
Surely the most careless and conventional reader cannot fail to see that there is a wide difference between the standpoint of the prophets, which is so purely spiritual, and that of the writers and redactors of the Priestly Code, whose whole interest centred in the sacrificial and ceremonial observances.
Nor is the intrinsic nullity of the sacrificial system less distinctly pointed out in the New Testament. The better-instructed Jews, enlightened by Christ's teaching, could give emphatic testimony to the immeasurable superiority of the moral to the ceremonial. The candid scribe, hearing from Christ's lips the two great commandments, answers, "Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, ... and to love his neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."[360]