He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.

He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as he that breaketh a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as he that offereth'swine's blood; he that burneth frankincense, as he that blesseth an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations:

He that sacrificeth an ox, is as if he slew a man: he that killeth a sheep in sacrifice, as if he should brain a dog: he that offereth an oblation, as if he should offer swine's blood; he that remembereth incense, as if he should bless an idol. All these things have they chosen in their ways, and their soul is delighted in their abominations.

He that slaughtereth an ox, smiteth a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, breaketh a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, it is as swine's blood; he that presenteth a memorial of incense, is as he that blesseth an idol. As they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations,

He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as he that breaketh a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as he that offereth swine's blood; he that burneth frankincense, as he that blesseth an idol: yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations;

Whoso slaughtereth the ox smiteth a man, Whoso sacrificeth the lamb beheadeth a dog, Whoso is bringing up a present, The blood of a sow, Whoso is making mention of frankincense, Is blessing iniquity. Yea, they have fixed on their own ways, And in their abominations their soul hath delighted.

He that kills an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrifices a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offers an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burns incense, as if he blessed an idol. Yes, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations.

He who puts an ox to death puts a man to death; he who makes an offering of a lamb puts a dog to death; he who makes a meal offering makes an offering of pig's blood; he who makes an offering of perfumes for a sign gives worship to an image: as they have gone after their desires, and their soul takes pleasure in their disgusting things;

He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he broke a dog's neck; He that offereth a meal-offering, as if he offered swine's blood; he that maketh a memorial-offering of frankincense, as if he blessed an idol; according as they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations;

He who slaughters an ox is like one who strikes down a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as he who breaks a dog's neck; he who offers an offering, as he who offers pig's blood; he who burns frankincense, as he who blesses an idol. Yes, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations:

Whoever immolates an ox, it is as if he slaughters a man. Whoever sacrifices a sheep, it is as if he is smashing the head of a dog. Whoever offers an oblation, it is as if he is offering swine's blood. Whoever makes remembrance with incense, it is as if he is blessing an idol. All these things, they have chosen according to their own ways, and their soul has taken delight in their own abominations.

Qui mactat bovem, acsi hominem occidat; qui sacrificat pecudem, acsi canem jugulet. Qui offert Minha, acsi offeret sanguinem suillum; qui recordatur thuris, acsi benedicat idolo (Hebrews iniquitati). Et sane elegerunt vias suas, et abominationes eorum anima ipsorum desideravit.

He that killeth an ox, as if he slew a man. There are two clauses in this verse. In the former, Isaiah plainly declares that all the sacrifices of his nation are of no value in the sight of God, but are held by him in abomination; in the latter, he describes the dreadful corruption by which they mingled the ceremonies of the Gentiles with the sacrifices of the Law, and in this way corrupted and perverted everything. The greater part of commentators think that these words repeal the sacrifices of the Law, but this is a mistake; for Isaiah, in this passage, treats of the same subject of which he had formerly treated in the first and fifty-eighth chapters, and does not absolutely condemn sacrifices, but rather the blemishes and corruptions of them, because the Jews thought that God was satisfied with a deceitful and empty appearance, and at the same time cared not about the true fear of God and a pure conscience. He does not speak, therefore, of the thing itself, but censures men who abused sacrifices; because this was as much as to offer to God the shell of an empty nut. In a word, no sacrifices are acceptable to God but those which proceed from a pure heart and an upright will. Yet it is probable that the Prophet alludes to the sacrifices of the Gentiles, which were shocking and monstrous; for they killed men, or buried them alive. Neither the Romans, (who reckoned themselves to be more religious than other nations,) nor even the Jews, abstained from this crime. Nay more, (kakozeloi) wicked imitators polluted themselves by many child-murders, thinking that they followed their father Abraham. Isaiah says that, "when they kill an ox, they do the same thing as if they slew a man;" [1] and thus he shews that the Jews, though they had a religion which was peculiar and which God had appointed, yet were in no respect better than the Gentiles, among whom everything was polluted and profane, and were not more highly approved by God; because the name of God is profaned by hypocrisy of religion not less than by corrupted and false worship. How necessary this admonition was, we have formerly seen; for, while the Jews were convicted of all crimes, yet, so long as they concealed themselves under this shadow, they thought that they were safe. Justly therefore does the Prophet meet them by saying, that they gain nothing more by their attempts to appease God than if they sought to offer sacrifices from the abominable sacrileges of the Gentiles. And truly they have chosen their own ways. There are two interpretations of this passage; for the antecedent to the pronoun may either be the Gentiles or the Jews; that is, either that the Jews mingled and entangled themselves with the wicked ceremonies of the Gentiles, or that they followed their own inventions. The former exposition would not be inappropriate, were it not that it is unnatural, because the word "Gentiles" has not been formerly expressed. It was the most aggravated part of the wickedness of the Jews, that they not only abused the pure worship of God, but likewise, through their contempt of the Law, defiled the temple and every other place by wicked and abominable superstitions. They built altars on high places, planted and reared groves, took delight in games and public entertainments, and copied everything else that was appointed by public authority for the purpose of corrupting the hearts of men. Thus there was produced among them a confused medley of superstitions, such as we now behold in Popery, in which we see various patches sewed together, taken out of every kind of superstitions, not only heathen and Jewish, but likewise such as have been recently contrived by Satan, that he might more easily, and with greater plausibility, impose on the world. These and similar practices the Prophet would justly pronounce to be doubly worthy of condemnation, because, while they boast of the name of God, and make profession of his worship, still they are not ashamed to stain and pollute that worship by the sacrileges of idolatrous nations. The other interpretation is not obscure, and is equally appropriate, that the Jews were devoted to their own inventions, and followed their own abominations, He affirms that they do not worship God sincerely, who despise him according to their own caprice, not only because they are full of avarice, hatred, ambition, dishonesty, cruelty, and extortion, but because they corrupt the worship of God by their own contrivances. Although the pronoun refers to the Jews, yet the Prophet condemns all superstitions which they had borrowed from the heathen nations. Consequently, there is little difference between the two interpretations; for he merely teaches that, because they have insolently and rebelliously shaken off the yoke of God, because wickedness openly prevails among them, everything that proceeds from them is polluted and detestable. Streams that bring down dirty and offensive matter from a muddy and polluted fountain cannot be clean or pure. Choice and desire reveal their obstinacy more clearly; that is, because, knowingly and willingly, they despised God's commandments, and devoted their heart to everything that was opposed to them, as if they wished intentionally to disdain everything that proceeded from God, that they might obey their depraved lust.

Footnotes

1 - "Qu' en sacrifiant un boeuf, e'est autant que s'ils coupoyent la gorge a un homme." "That, in sacrificing an ox, it is the same as if they were cutting a man's throat."

He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man - Lowth and Noyes render this, 'He that slayeth an ox, killeth a man.' This is a literal translation of the Hebrew. Jerome renders it, 'He who sacrifices an ox is as if (quasi) he slew a man.' The Septuagint, in a very free translation - such as is common in their version of Isaiah - render it, 'The wicked man who sacrifices a calf, is as he who kills a dog; and he who offers to me fine flour, it is as the blood of swine.' Lowth supposes the sense to be, that the most flagitious crimes were united with hypocrisy, and that they who were guilty of the most extreme acts of wickedness at the same time affected great strictness in the performance of all the external duties of religion. An instance of this, he says, is referred to by Ezekiel, where he says, 'When they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it' Ezekiel 23:39.
There can be no doubt that such offences were often committed by those who were very strict and zealous in their religious services (compare Isaiah 1:11-14, with Isaiah 66:21-23. But the generality of interpreters have supposed that a different sense was to be affixed to this passage. According to their views, the particles as if are to be supplied; and the sense is, not that the mere killing of an ox is as sinful in the sight of God as deliberate murder, but that he who did it in the circumstances, and with the spirit referred to, evinced a spirit as odious in his sight as though he had slain a man. So the Septuagint, Vulgate, Chaldee, Symmachus, and Theodotion, Junius, and Tremellius, Grotius, and Rosenmuller, understand it. There is probably an allusion to the fact that human victims were offered by the pagan; and the sense is, that the sacrifices here referred to were no more acceptable in the sight of God than they were.
The prophet here refers, probably, first, to the spirit with which this was done. Their sacrifices were offered with a temper of mind as offensive to God as if a man had been slain, and they had been guilty of murder. They were proud, vain, and hypocritical. 'They had forgotten the true nature and design of sacrifice, and such worship could not but be an abhorrence in the sight of God. Secondly, It may also be implied here, that the period was coming when all sacrifices would be unacceptable to God. When the Messiah should have come; when he should have made by one offering a sufficent atonement for the sins of the whole world; then all bloody sacrifices would be needless, and would be offensive in the sight of God. The sacrifice of an ox would be no more acceptable than the sacrifice of a man; and all offerings with a view to propitiate the divine favor, or that implied that there was a deficiency in the merit of the one great atoning sacrifice, would be odious to God.
He that sacrificeth a lamb - Margin, 'Kid' The Hebrew word (שׂה s'eh) may refer to one of a flock, either of sheep or goats Genesis 22:7-8; Genesis 30:32. Where the species is to be distinguished, it is usually specified, as, e. g., Deuteronomy 14:4, כשׂבים שׂה עזים ושׂה ves'ēh ‛ı̂zzym s'ēh kı̂s'âbı̂ym (one of the sheep and one of the goats). Both were used in sacrifice.
As if he cut off a dog's neck - That is, as if he had cut off a dog's neck for sacrifice. To offer a dog in sacrifice would have been abominable in the view of a Jew. Even the price for which he was sold was not permitted to be brought into the house of God for a vow (Deuteronomy 23:18; compare 1-Samuel 17:43; 1-Samuel 24:14). The dog was held in veneration by many of the pagan, and was even offered in sacrifice; and it was, doubtless, partly in view of this fact, and especially of the fact that such veneration was shown for it in Egypt, that it was an object of such detestation among the Jews. Thus Juvenal, Sat. xiv. says:
Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam.
'Every city worships the dog; none worship Diana.' Diodorus (B. i.) says, 'Certain animals the Egyptians greatly venerate (σέβονται sebontai), not only when alive, but when they are dead, as cats, ichneumons, mice, and dogs.' Herodotus says also of the Egyptians, 'In some cities, when a cat dies all the inhabitants cut off their eyebrows; when a dog dies, they shave the whole body and the head.' In Samothracia there was a cave in which dogs were sacrificed to Hecate. Plutarch says, that all the Greeks sacrificed the dog. The fact that dogs were offered in sacrifice by the pagan is abundantly proved by Bochart (Hieroz. i. 2. 56). No kind of sacrifice could have been regarded with higher detestation by a pious Jew. But God here says, that the spirit with which they sacrificed a goat or a lamb was as hateful in his sight as would be the sacrifice of a dog: or that the time would come when, the great sacrifice for sin having been made, and the necessity for all other sacrifice having ceased, the offering of a lamb or a goat for the expiation of sin would be as offensive to him as would be the sacrifice of a dog.
He that offereth an oblation - On the word rendered here 'oblation' (מנחה minchāh). See the notes at Isaiah 1:13.
As if he offered swine's blood - The sacrifice of a hog was an abomination in the sight of the Hebrews (see the notes at Isaiah 65:4). Yet here it is said that the offering of the מנחה minchāh, in the spirit in which they would do it, was as offensive to God as would be the pouring out of the blood of the swine on the altar, Nothing could more emphatically express the detestation of God for the spirit with which they would make their offerings, or the fact that the time would come when all such modes of worship would be offensive in his sight.
He that burneth incense - See the word 'incense' explained in the notes at Isaiah 1:13. The margin here is, 'Maketh a memorial of.' Such is the usual meaning of the word used here (זכר zâkar), meaning to remember, and in Hiphil to cause to remember, or to make a memorial. Such is its meaning here. incense was burned as a memorial or a remembrance-offering; that is, to keep up the remembrance of God on the earth by public worship (see the notes at Isaiah 62:6).
As if he blessed an idol - The spirit with which incense would be offered would be as offensive as idolatry. The sentiment in all this is, that the most regular and formal acts of worship where the heart is lacking, may be as offensive to God as the worst forms of crime, or the most gross and debasing idolatry. Such a spirit often characterized the Jewish people, and eminently prevailed at the time when the temple of Herod was nearly completed, and when the Saviour was about to appear.

He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man "He that slayeth an ox killeth a man" - These are instances of wickedness joined with hypocrisy; of the most flagitious crimes committed by those who at the same time affected great strictness in the performance of all the external services of religion. God, by the Prophet Ezekiel, upbraids the Jews with the same practices: "When they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it," Ezekiel 23:39. Of the same kind was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in our Savior's time:" who devoured widows' houses, and for a pretense made long prayers," Matthew 23:14.
The generality of interpreters, by departing from the literal rendering of the text, have totally lost the true sense of it, and have substituted in its place what makes no good sense at all; for it is not easy to show how, in any circumstances, sacrifice and murder, the presenting of legal offerings and idolatrous worship, can possibly be of the same account in the sight of God.
He that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood "That maketh an oblation offereth swine's blood" - A word here likewise, necessary to complete the sense, is perhaps irrecoverably lost out of the text. The Vulgate and Chaldee add the word offereth, to make out the sense; not, as I imagine, from any different reading, (for the word wanted seems to have been lost before the time of the oldest of them as the Septuagint had it not in their copy,; but from mere necessity.
Le Clerc thinks that מעלה maaleh is to be repeated from the beginning of this member; but that is not the case in the parallel members, which have another and a different verb in the second place, "דם dam, sic Versiones; putarem tamen legendum participium aliquod, et quidem זבח zabach, cum sequatur ח cheth, nisi jam praecesserat." - Secker. Houbigant supplies אכל achal, eateth. After all, I think the most probable word is that which the Chaldee and Vulgate seem to have designed to represent; that is, מקריב makrib, offereth.
In their abominations - ובשקוציהם ubeshikkutseyhem, "and in their abominations;" two copies of the Machazor, and one of Kennicott's MSS. have ובגלוליהם ubegilluleyhem, "and in their idols." So the Vulgate and Syriac.

He that killeth an ox [is as if] he (d) slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, [as if] he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, [as if he offered] swine's blood; he that burneth incense, [as if] he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.
(d) Because the Jews thought themselves holy by offering their sacrifices, and in the mean season had neither faith or repentance, God shows that he no less detests these ceremonies than he does the sacrifices of the heathen, who offered men, dogs and swine to their idols, which things were expressly forbidden in the law.

He that killeth an ox, is as if he slew a man,.... Not that killed the ox of his neighbour, which, according to law, he was to pay for; or that killed one for food, which was lawful to be done; but that slew one, and offered it as a sacrifice; not blamed because blind or lame, or had any blemish in it, and so unfit for sacrifice; or because not rightly offered, under a due sense of sin, and with repentance for it, and faith in Christ; but because all sacrifices of this kind are now abolished in Gospel times, to which this prophecy belongs; Christ the great sacrifice being offered up; and therefore to offer sacrifice, which, notwithstanding the unbelieving Jews continued daily, till it was made to cease by the destruction of their temple, was a great offence to God; it was as grievous to him as offering their children to Moloch; or as the murder of a man; and was indeed a trampling under foot the Son of God, and accounting his blood and sacrifice as nothing, which was highly displeasing to God:
he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; the lamb for the daily sacrifice, morning and evening, or the passover lamb, or any other: this now is no more acceptable to God, than if a dog, a very impure creature, was slain, his head cut off, and offered on the altar; which was so abominable to the Lord, that the price of one might not be brought into his house, Deuteronomy 23:18,
he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; the meat offering, made of fine flour, on which oil was poured, and frankincense put, Leviticus 2:1, however rightly composed it might be, and offered according to law, yet now of no more esteem with God than blood, which was forbidden by the same law; nay, than the blood of swine, which creature itself, according to the ceremonial law, was unclean, and might not be eaten, and much less be offered up, and still less its blood, Leviticus 11:7,
and he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol; or that "remembers incense" (p); that offers it as a memorial of mercies, and by way of thankfulness for them, as if he gave thanks to an idol, which is nothing, and vanity and vexation in the world; sacrifices of such kind, be they what they will, are reckoned no other than as idolatry and will worship:
yea, they have chosen their own ways: which were evil, and opposite to the ways of God, especially to the way of salvation by Christ; they gave heed to the traditions of the elders; continued the service of the ceremonial law; and set up their own righteousness, in opposition to the doctrines, ordinances, sacrifice, and righteousness of Christ:
and their soul delighteth in their abominations: things which were abominable unto God; as were their traditions, which were preferred to the word of God, and by which they made it void; and their sacrifices being offered up contrary to his will, and with a wicked mind; and their righteousness being imperfect, and trusted in, to the neglect and contempt of the righteousness of his Son.
(p) , , Sept.; "qui recordatur thuris", V. L. Calvin, Vatablus; "memorans thus", Montanus.

God loathes even the sacrifices of the wicked (Isaiah 1:11; Proverbs 15:8; Proverbs 28:9).
is as if--LOWTH not so well omits these words: "He that killeth an ox (presently after) murders a man" (as in Ezekiel 23:39). But the omission in the Hebrew of "is as if"--increases the force of the comparison. Human victims were often offered by the heathen.
dog's neck--an abomination according to the Jewish law (Deuteronomy 23:18); perhaps made so, because dogs were venerated in Egypt. He does not honor this abomination by using the word "sacrifice," but uses the degrading term, "cut off a dog's neck" (Exodus 13:13; Exodus 34:20). Dogs as unclean are associated with swine (Matthew 7:6; 2-Peter 2:22).
oblation--unbloody: in antithesis to "swine's blood" (Isaiah 65:4).
burneth--Hebrew, "he who offereth as a memorial oblation" (Leviticus 2:2).
they have chosen--opposed to the two first clauses of Isaiah 66:4 : "as they have chosen their own ways, &c., so I will choose their delusions.

He that, &c. - Solomon, Proverbs 15:8, gives a full commentary on the whole verse; The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. As if - From hence it is plain, that the prophet is not here reflecting upon idolatrous worship, but formal worship: upon those who in a formality worshipped the true God, and by acts which he had appointed. God by the prophet declares, that these mens services were no more acceptable to him than murder, idolatry, or the most horrid profanation of his name. Own ways - They live as they lust. Delight - They take pleasure in their sins.