Jeremiah 7:21
in Jeremiah 7This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves!
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat ye flesh.
KJV
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.
⋯
This verse in Jeremiah 7
Commentary
10 notes on this verse(Verse 21) Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. When He condemns the temple, He consequently condemns the sacrifices as well; and He indirectly accuses them because they offer victims not out of reverence for Him, but out of a desire for feasts.
This site's exposition
Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices
on Jeremiah 7:21-23
Verse 22 says the LORD “did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices”, for the sacrificial law was not the first word. That first word stands in verse 23, “Obey Me, and I will be your God”.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
It is made clear also from this that the obsolete prescriptions of the law had been imposed because of Israel's limitations. Since they had learned in Egypt how to sacrifice to idols, he wanted to separate them from those practices—in all the prophets he rejects …
A commentator
Apostolic ConstitutionsCONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES 6:4.22 · Written before 380.
proposed
You are blessed who are delivered from the curse. Christ, the Son of God, by his coming has confirmed and completed the law but has taken away the additional precepts, although not all of them, yet at least the more grievous ones. He confirmed the former and abolished the latter, and he has again set the free will of humankind at liberty. He does not subject them to the penalty of a temporal death but gives laws to them according to another constitution. For this reason, he says, "If anyone will come after me, let him come." And again, "Will you also go away?" And besides, before his coming he refused the sacrifices of the people, while they frequently offered them, when they sinned against him and thought he was to be appeased by sacrifices but not by repentance.
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
Keep your sacrifices to yourselves " (so some understand it); "let them be served up at your own table, for they are no way acceptable at God's altars." For the opening of this, I. He shows them that obedience was the only thing he required of them,
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes
Put - Ironical words, take those that are peculiar, and to be all burnt to me, and do what you will with them, I will have none of them. To your sacrifices - That part of your sacrifices, which you are allowed to eat, they are but as profane food.
Thus saith the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel,....
3 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century3 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
The meaning is, Increase your sacrifices as you will. Acid burnt-offering to peace-offerings. All is in vain as long as you neglect the indispensable requirements of obedience and moral purity. Eat flesh is equivalent to sacrifice. The flesh of animals offered in sacrifice was usually eaten by the offerers, and this meal was regarded as a symbol of reconciliation. God and man partook of the same victim, and so were made friends. This passage Jer 7:21-28 is the Haphtarah (lesson) from the prophets, after the Parashah, Lev. 6–8, or Lesson from the Law.
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
Put . . . burnt offerings unto . . . sacrifices . . . eat flesh--Add the former (which the law required to be wholly burnt) to the latter (which were burnt only in part), and "eat flesh" even off the holocausts or burnt offerings.
Put your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh - I will receive neither sacrifice nor oblation from you; therefore you may take the beasts intended for sacrifice, and slay and eat them for your common nourishment. See on Jer 7:29 (note).
The words behind it
12 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| כֹּ֥ה | koh | thus | H3541 → | 577 times |
| אָמַ֛ר | ʾamar | he says | H559 → | 5305 times |
| יְהוָ֥ה | yahweh | Yahweh | H3068 → | 6520 times |
| צְבָא֖וֹת | tzevaot | of hosts | H6635 → | 485 times |
| אֱלֹהֵ֣י | ʾelohei | [the] God of | H430 → | 2601 times |
| יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל | yisrael | Israel | H3478 → | 2507 times |
| עֹלוֹתֵיכֶ֛ם | oloteikhem | burnt offerings your | H5930 → | 287 times |
| סְפ֥וּ | sefu | add | H3254 → | 212 times |
| עַל־ | ʾal- | to | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| זִבְחֵיכֶ֖ם | zivcheikhem | sacrifices your | H2077 → | 162 times |
| וְאִכְל֥וּ | veikhlu | and eat | H398 → | 810 times |
| בָשָֽׂר׃ | vasar | meat | H1320 → | 270 times |
כֹּ֥הthus
kohH3541 →577 times
אָמַ֛רhe says
ʾamarH559 →5305 times
יְהוָ֥הYahweh
yahwehH3068 →6520 times
צְבָא֖וֹתof hosts
tzevaotH6635 →485 times
אֱלֹהֵ֣י[the] God of
ʾeloheiH430 →2601 times
יִשְׂרָאֵ֑לIsrael
yisraelH3478 →2507 times
עֹלוֹתֵיכֶ֛םburnt offerings your
oloteikhemH5930 →287 times
סְפ֥וּadd
sefuH3254 →212 times
עַל־to
ʾal-H5921 →5755 times
זִבְחֵיכֶ֖םsacrifices your
zivcheikhemH2077 →162 times
וְאִכְל֥וּand eat
veikhluH398 →810 times
בָשָֽׂר׃meat
vasarH1320 →270 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Jeremiah 6:20What use to Me is frankincense from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please Me.”
it leads to
- Isaiah 1:11
“What good to Me is your multitude of sacrifices?” says the LORD. “I am full from the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I take no delight in the blood…
- Micah 6:6–8
With what shall I come before the LORD when I bow before the God on high? Should I come to Him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves?
- Amos 5:21–22
“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.
- Psalms 40:6
Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but my ears You have opened. Burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require.
- Isaiah 1:11
Through
Hosea 8:13Though they offer sacrifices as gifts to Me, and though they eat the meat, the LORD does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins: They will return to…
it leads to
- Hosea 9:6
For even if they flee destruction, Egypt will gather them and Memphis will bury them. Their precious silver will be taken over by thistles, and thorns will overrun their tents.
- Hosea 9:9
They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah; He will remember their guilt; He will punish their sins.
- Amos 5:22
Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard.
- Amos 8:7
The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.
- Hosea 9:6
Where this verse is studied
About Jeremiah
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Apostolic Constitutions, CONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES 6:4.22; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Jeremiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Theodoret of Cyrus, ON JEREMIAH 2:7.21-23.