" It is no new matter, but a thing well known,
that sacrifices are not what the Torah of the Lord contains.
That we have not inferred too much from these utterances of the
older prophets is clear from the way in which they are taken up
and carried on by Jeremiah, who lived shortly before the
Babylonian exile. Just as in vi.19 seq. he opposes the Torah to
the cultus, so in vii.11 seq. he thus expresses himself:
"Add your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh!
For I said nought unto your fathers, and commanded them nought,
in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning
burnt-offerings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I them:
hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my
people, and walk ye in the way that I shall always teach you, that
it may be well with you."
The view indeed, that the prophets (who, from the connection,
are the ever-living voice to which Israel is to hearken) are
the proper soul of the theocracy, the organ by which Jehovah
influences and rules it, has no claim to immemorial antiquity.
But no stress lies upon the positive element here;
enough that at all events Jeremiah is unacquainted with the Mosaic
legislation as it is contained in the Priestly Code.
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