So, considering the verses I quoted, especially Jeremiah 7: 22,23, isn't there a contradiction in what Moses also directed about sacrifices? I believe the answer can be found in what Jesus said in Matthew 19:8 -- "He said to them, For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so."
I believe there is good evidence that the sacrifices were allowed because of the hardness of heart of the people, but in the beginning it was not so, as evidenced in Jeremiah 7:22.23.
"The commandment to offer sacrifices was given under a similar permission. It was not desired from the beginning but Moses allowed them to offer many sacrifices because of the hardness of their hearts. It was a practice arising in darkest antiquity and the Israelites were not inclined to discontinue such a time honored custom.
This presupposes that the offering of sacrifices was already an established custom among the people of Israel, one they continually adhered to due to their hardness of heart. Is there biblical evidence of this?
Yes; before the Israelites left Egypt, we find the practice among them:
Exod.10
[24] Then Pharaoh called Moses, and said, "Go, serve the LORD; your children also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind."
[25] But Moses said, "You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.
We can conclude that the offering of sacrifices and burnt offerings to God was nothing new to the people who left Egypt, or to Moses. It can, in fact, be traced all the way back to their patriarch, Abraham, who was proceeding to make a living human sacrifice of his son, Isaac, when God called him and made a covenant with him. It was an established part of their pre Moses religion. God, through Moses, allowed them to maintain it due to the hardness of their hearts.
Psalm 95
[7] For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
O that today you would hearken to his voice!
[8] Harden not your hearts, as at Mer'ibah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
[9] when your fathers tested me,
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
[10] For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, "They are a people who err in heart,
and they do not regard my ways."
[11] Therefore I swore in my anger
that they should not enter my rest.
Can there be any clearer diagnosis of the heart condition of the Israelites during the entire forty years they spent in the wilderness, when Moses gave them all that legislation regarding the sacrifices? Not divorce only, not only the sacrificial practices also, but many things Moses permitted those hard hearted ones in the wilderness."
But in the beginning, it was not required or desired by God.
For those who think it was, if Jesus had not come, would you be willing to resort to cutting animals' throats because you believe that God would not forgive you otherwise?
This all relates to what the incarnation, life, work, ministry, atonement, and resurrection of Jesus accomplished and means. Jesus died a most heinous death on the cross, but His death was not a punishment in our place to appease an angry and vengeful God; God did not require such punishment or inflict it on His Son. The death of Jesus reconciles us to God, defeated the devil, death, and hell, shows us God's love and reveals His mercy, and by the resurrection of Jesus, we are assured of our own resurrection.
