Into The Colosseum

Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock, and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

Malachi 1:14 ESV

Back in the Old Testament days, there were all kinds of sacrifices that were offered. What this passage is talking about, though, is a sacrifice given to fulfill a vow. Here is one verse that talks about these kinds of sacrifices.

Deuteronomy 23:21-23

“When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the Lord your God will surely require it of you. However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin to you. You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, what you have promised."

So a vow was where you asked God for help and then promised that you would give Him a sacrifice if He helped you. I know I've made plenty of vows in my lifetime; that's why I don't have any sheep. But the vows were totally voluntary. Unlike so many of the sacrifices in ancient Israel, you didn't have to make a vow if you didn't want to. That's why God says, "If you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin to you." However, if you do make a vow, He expects you to keep it. Do "not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the Lord your God will surely require it of you."

But people always try to find loopholes, as we see in Malachi. The people knew they had to keep their vows, but they thought they would pull a fast one on God. They promised to give God an unblemished, male sheep (which is a double big deal because a sheep being unblemished is really valuable, but it being a male is even more valuable because those are your money makers), so they promised an unblemished, male sheep—in other words, the best that they had in their flock. When it came to pay up and give God the sacrifice, though, they did indeed give a sheep, but they did not give their unblemished male, the best of the best. They gave a second-rate, blemished animal. It might have still been valuable, but it was not the costly sacrifice they had promised. And when God calls them out on their shenanigans, they're all like, "What? What did we do?" And God responds, "You know what you did. Would this sacrifice be acceptable to anyone else after you had promised them the best? How much more, then, do I deserve?"

The Israelites had lost sight of the glory and majesty of God. The Lord even tells them that in verse 6 of chapter 1. He says, "Fathers deserve honor and Masters deserve to be feared. If I am your Father, where is my honor? If I am your Master, where is my reverence?" Instead of approaching the King of all the earth with reverence and respect and joyfully giving the best of their flock, the giving of sacrifices to the Lord had become something common to them. Instead of their sacrifice being a result of the overflow of their heart and the intentional surrender of their best to God, it became a ritual to be fulfilled so that they could get on with their lives. They felt that they no longer had to give their best, they just had to give.

In 2 Samuel chapter 24, the Lord sent a plague on the nation of Israel because of a sin that David committed. And the Lord tells David through the prophet Gad to go build an altar on the property owned by a man named Auranah the Jebusite. As David is walking up to the man's house, Araunah sees the king coming and goes and falls on his face before David and says, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" David told him that he needed to build an altar on his property and Araunah responded, "Let my Lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood." So Araunah is giving David everything he needs for the sacrifice: here's my oxen and here's all the wood you will need; take it, I freely give it, it's yours. But David, despite all his character flaws and shortcomings, was a man of integrity, a man of honor, a man who had surrendered his entire life to his God. So when Araunah offered him all this, David responded, "No, I will buy it all from you. I will not offer [a sacrifice] to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”