the Second Week after Easter
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JPS Old Testament
Hosea 6:6
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For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice,the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
For I desire loyalty rather than sacrifice, And the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
I want faithful love more than I want animal sacrifices. I want people to know me more than I want burnt offerings.
For I desire and delight in [steadfast] loyalty [faithfulness in the covenant relationship], rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
For I desired mercie, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more then burnt offrings.
For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
For I delight in lovingkindness rather than sacrifice,And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
I'd rather for you to be faithful and to know me than to offer sacrifices.
For what I desire is mercy, not sacrifices, knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
For I delight in loving-kindness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.
This is because I want faithful love, not sacrifice. I want people to know God, not to bring burnt offerings.
For I desired mercy and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices. I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me.
Because I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
For I desire goodness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.
Because my desire is for mercy and not offerings; for the knowledge of God more than for burned offerings.
For I desired mercie, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more then burnt offerings.
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more then burnt offeringes.
Therefore have I mown down your prophets; I have slain them with the word of my mouth: and my judgment shall go forth as the light.
For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
and thi domes schulen go out as liyt. For Y wolde merci, and not sacrifice, and Y wolde the kunnyng of God, more than brent sacrificis.
For I desire goodness, and not sacrifice; and knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.
For I delight in faithfulness, not simply in sacrifice; I delight in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings.
For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.
I want loving-kindness and not a gift to be given in worship. I want people to know God instead of giving burnt gifts.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
For, lovingkindness, I desired, and not sacrifice, - and the knowledge of God, more than ascending-offerings.
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.
For kindness I desired, and not sacrifice, And a knowledge of God above burnt-offerings.
For I haue pleasure in louynge kyndnesse, and not in offerynge: Yee in the knowlege of God, more then in burntsacrifice.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
I desired: 1 Samuel 15:22, Psalms 50:8, Proverbs 21:3, Ecclesiastes 5:1, Isaiah 1:11, Isaiah 58:6, Jeremiah 7:22, Daniel 4:27, Amos 5:21, Micah 6:6, Matthew 5:7, Matthew 9:13, Matthew 12:7
the: Hosea 4:1, 1 Chronicles 28:9, Jeremiah 22:16, 1 John 2:3, 1 John 3:6
Reciprocal: Numbers 29:17 - General Numbers 30:5 - General Joshua 5:5 - they had not Psalms 40:6 - Sacrifice Psalms 51:16 - desirest Hosea 4:6 - for Amos 5:24 - let Micah 6:7 - pleased Micah 6:8 - to do Matthew 5:23 - thou Matthew 23:23 - the weightier Mark 3:4 - Is it Mark 12:24 - Do Mark 12:33 - is more Luke 10:37 - He that Hebrews 10:4 - not
Cross-References
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; every thing that is in the earth shall perish.
But I will establish My covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.
And the LORD repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people.
God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: when He hath said, will He not do it? or when He hath spoken, will He not make it good?
Ye shall walk in all the way which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.
If they were wise, they would understand this, they would discern their latter end.
For the LORD will judge His people, and repent Himself for His servants; when He seeth that their stay is gone, and there is none remaining, shut up or left at large.
'It repenteth Me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he is turned back from following Me, and hath not performed My commandments.' And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice,.... That is, the one rather than the other, as the next clause explains it. Sacrifices were of early use, even before the law of Moses; they were of divine appointment, and were approved and accepted of by the Lord; they were types of Christ, and led to him, and were continued unto his death; but in comparison of moral duties, which respect love to God, and to our neighbour, the Lord did not will them, desire them, and delight in them; or he had more regard for the former than the latter; see
1 Samuel 15:22; nor did he will or accept at all of the sacrifices ordered to the calves at Dan and Bethel; nor others, when they were not such as the law required, or were not offered up in the faith of Christ, attended with repentance for sin, and in sincerity, and were brought as real expiatory sacrifices for sin, and especially as now abrogated by the sacrifice of Christ. And as these words are twice quoted by our Lord, at one time to justify his mercy, pity, and compassion, to the souls of poor sinners, by conversing with them, Matthew 9:13; and at another time to justify the disciples in an act of mercy to their bodies when hungry, by plucking ears of corn on the sabbath day, Matthew 12:7; "mercy" may here respect both acts of mercy shown by the Lord, and acts of mercy done by men; both which the Lord wills, desires, and delights in: he takes pleasure in showing mercy himself, as appears by his free and open declarations of it; by the throne of grace and mercy he has set up; by the encouragement he gives to souls to hope in his mercy; by the objects of it, the chief of sinners; by the various ways he has taken to display it, in election, in the covenant of grace, in the mission of Christ, in the pardon of sin by him, and in regeneration; and by his opposing it to everything else, in the affair of salvation. And he likewise has a very great regard to mercy as exercised by men; as this is one of the weightier matters of the law, and may be put for the whole of it, or however the second table of it, which is love to our neighbours, and takes in all kind offices done to them; and especially designs acts of liberality to necessitous persons; which are sacrifices God is well pleased with, even more than with the ceremonious ones; these being such in which men resemble him the merciful God, who is kind to the unthankful, and to the evil;
and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings; which were reckoned the greatest and most excellent sacrifices, the whole being the Lord's; but knowledge of God is preferred to them; by which is meant, not the knowledge of God, the light of nature, which men might have, and not him; nor by the law of Moses, as a lawgiver, judge, and consuming fire; but a knowledge of him in Christ, as the God and Father of Christ, as the God of all grace, gracious and merciful in him; as a covenant God and Father in him, which is through the Gospel by the Spirit, and is eternal life, John 17:3; this includes in it faith and hope in God, love to him, fear of him and his goodness, and the whole worship of him, both internal and external. These words seem designed to expose and remove the false ground of trust and confidence in sacrifices the people of Israel were prone unto; as we find they were in the times of Isaiah, who was contemporary with Hoses; see Isaiah 1:12. The Targum interprets them of those that exercise mercy, and do the law of the Lord.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
For I desired mercy and not sacrifice - God had said before, that they should “seek” Him “with their flocks and herds, and not find” Him. So here He anticipates their excuses with the same answer wherewith He met those of Saul, when he would compensate for disobedience by burnt-offerings. The answer is, that all which they did to win His favor, or turn aside His wrath, was of no avail, while they willfully withheld what He required of them. Their mercy and goodness were but a brief, passing, show; in vain He had tried to awaken them by His prophets; therefore judgment was coming upon them, for, to turn it aside, they had offered Him what He desired not, sacrifices without love, and had not offered Him, what He did desire, love of man out of love for God. God had Himself, after the fall, enjoined sacrifice, to foreshow and plead to Himself the meritorious Sacrifice of Christ. “He” had not contrasted “mercy” and “sacrifice,” who enjoined them both.
When then they were contrasted, it was through man’s severing what God united. If we were to say, “Charity is better than Church-going,” we should be understood to mean that it is better than such Church-going as is severed from charity. For, if they were united, they would not be contrasted. The soul is of more value than the body. But it is not contrasted, unless they come in competition with one another, and their interests (although they cannot in trust “be,”) “seem” to be separated. in itself, “Sacrifice” represented all the direct duties to God, all the duties of the first table. For Sacrifice owned Him as the One God, to whom, as His creatures, we owe and offer all; as His guilty creatures, it owned that we owed to Him our lives also. “mercy” represented all duties of the second table. In saying then, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice,” he says, in effect, the same as John, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” 1 John 4:20.
As the love, which a man pretended to have for God, was not real love, if a man loved not his brother, so “sacrifice” was not an offering, to God at all, while man withheld from God that offering, which God most required of him, the oblation of man’s own self. They were, rather, offerings to satisfy and bribe a man’s own conscience. Yet the Jews were profuse in making these sacrifices, which cost them little hoping thereby to secure to themselves impunity the wrongful gains, oppressions, and fulnesses which they would not part with. It is with this contrast, that God so often rejects the sacrifices of the Jews, “To what purpose is the multitude of your oblations unto Me? Bring no more vain oblations unto Me; new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; iniquity and the solemn meeting” Isaiah 1:11-13. “I spake not to your fathers, nor commanded them, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices; but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people” Jeremiah 7:22-23. And the Psalmist; “I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before Me. Offer unto God thanksgiving, etc. But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do, to declare My statutes, etc.” Psalms 1:1-6, Psalms 8:1-9, Psalms 14:1-7, Psalms 16:1-11.
But, further, the prophet adds, “and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.” The two parts of the verse fill out one another, and the latter explains the former. “The knowledge of God” is, as before, no inactive head-knowledge, but that knowledge, of which John speaks, “Hereby we do know that we knew Him, if we keep His commandments” Ephesians 2:3. It is a knowledge, such as they alone can have, who love God and do His will. God says then, that He prefers the inward, loving, knowledge of Himself, and lovingkindness toward man, above the outward means of acceptableness with Himself, which He had appointed. He does not lower those His own appointments; but only when, emptied of the spirit of devotion, they were lifeless bodies, unensouled by His grace.
Yet the words of God go beyond the immediate occasion and bearing, in which they were first spoken. And so these words, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” Matthew 9:13, are a sort of sacred proverb, contrasting “mercy,” which overflows the bounds of strict justice, with “sacrifice,” which represents that stern justice. Thus, when the Pharisees complained at our Lord for eating with Publicans and sinners, He bade them, “Go and learn what that meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice.” He bade them learn that deeper meaning of the words, that God valued mercy for the souls for which Christ died, above that outward propriety, that He, the All-Holy, should not feast familiarly with those who profaned God’s law and themselves. Again, when they found fault with the hungry disciples for breaking the sabbath by rubbing the ears of grain, He, in the same way, tells them, that they did not know the real meaning of that saying. “If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless” Matthew 12:7. For as, before, they were envious as to mercy to the souls of sinners, so how they were reckless as to others’ bodily needs. Without that love then, which shows itself in acts of mercy to the souls and bodies of people, all sacrifice is useless.
“Mercy” is also more comprehensive than “sacrifice.” For sacrifice was referred to God only, as its end; “mercy,” or love of man for the love of God, obeys God who commands it; imitates God, “Whose property it is always to have mercy;” seeks God who rewards it; promotes the glory of God, through the thanksgiving to God, from those whom it benefits. “mercy leads man up to God, for mercy brought down God to man; mercy humbled God, exalts man.” mercy takes Christ as its pattern, who, from His Holy Incarnation to His Precious Death on the Cross, “bare our griefs, and carried our sorrows” Isaiah 53:4. Yet neither does mercy itself avail without true knowledge of God. For as mercy or love is the soul of all our acts, so true knowledge of God and faith in God are the source and soul of love. “Vain were it to boast that we have the other members, if faith, the head, were cut off” .
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Hosea 6:6. I desired mercy, and not sacrifice — I taught them righteousness by my prophets; for I desired mercy. I was more willing to save than to destroy; and would rather see them full of penitent and holy resolutions, than behold them offering the best and most numerous victims upon my altar. See Matthew 9:13.
