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Mercy not Sacrifice All quotations from the NKJV unless otherwise specified "At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!’" (Matthew 12:1,2) "But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless." (Matt.12:7, quoting from Hosea 6:6) "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." (Hos.6:6) "For I desire goodness, not sacrifice, obedience to God, rather than burnt offerings." (Hos.6:6) ‑ Jewish "Tanakh;" Hebrew translated into English. But what does picking a few heads of grain, rubbing them to remove the chaff, and eating the individual grains have to do with "mercy" or "goodness"? And what does the religious leaders super‑zealous concern for the Sabbath [and their added traditions] have to do with "sacrifice"? And the continuation of the Hosea passage, listing "obedience," "knowledge" and "burnt offerings," seems not to clarify matters at all. It was legal to pluck, and eat, grain from a field through which one passed (Deuteronomy 23:25), but the scribes, in their traditions, considered that to be some form of reaping and threshing, so it was considered illegal on the Sabbath. But Jesus said that his disciples were "guiltless;" so, what was the significance of his reply using this quotation from Hosea? The word "mercy" is placed in opposition to "sacrifice," yet this contrast is somewhat difficult to grasp, as is "knowledge of God" versus "burnt offerings." If we examine the word "mercy" further, the passage becomes a little clearer. The word translated "mercy" is the Hebrew "chesed" [H2617], or Romanized as "hesed." There is no direct translation of the Hebrew word into Greek or English, but it is often translated "lovingkindness," and means faithful love, faithfulness, generosity, enduring commitment, compassion, benevolence, or loyalty. Thus, we can intuitively gather the idea that the contrast seems to be between the spirit and the letter of the Sabbath ordinances. In this scenario in Matthew 12, the contrast seems to be between the proper use of the Sabbath [according to God’s original law], and the multitude of Rabbinical traditions that later made it a burden. The religious leaders did not actually care about this minor infraction of their traditions; rather they were using this incident as a way to attack Jesus, who was first and foremost their target. They should have been seeking the welfare of their fellow Israelites, rather than adding to their burdens; they should have had "lovingkindness" for them. Jesus once said: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." (Matt.23:2‑4) The following passage speaks to the true meaning of God’s commandments: "to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." (Mark 12:33) Mark also records the Sabbath incident, and adds the story of David and the showbread, and also mentions a pivotal point in Mark 2:27, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." "Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. And the Pharisees said to Him, ‘Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ But He said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?’ And He said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.’" (Mark 2:23‑28; see also Luke 6:1‑5) Another occasion, evoking the same response [quoting Hos.6:6], took place when Jesus was eating with tax collectors. "As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ So he arose and followed him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard that, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’" (Matt.9:9‑13) The original Scripture statement— "For I desire mercy is actually a parallelism. Lines 1 and 3 go together, and lines 2 and 4 go together. Reading 1 and 3 first, and then 2 and 4 next, we get the following as the proper thought: "I desire mercy and the knowledge of God, rather than sacrifice and burnt offerings." So, what is involved here seems to be—how do we adjust the mutual [and perhaps contradictory] relations of moral and ceremonial obedience, of the spirit and the letter? In all cases, Jesus tells us that the moral and the spirit always have precedence. A somewhat similar case involved Saul and Samuel. God, through Samuel, told Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites and their animals. Saul did this, except he reserved the best animals to sacrifice to the Lord. When Samuel arrived at Gilgal, he said this: "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" (1 Samuel 15:14) "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey To bring this discussion to a fitting conclusion, God did not ordain the Sabbath to be a burden to man, but to be a blessing; not to work hardship but to increase happiness and well‑being. To miss the spirit of the Sabbath and to concentrate on observing formalities and refraining from certain activities, is to keep the letter of the Law [or its traditions] and to seek righteousness based on works. LS |
