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Deuteronomy17:1

Detestable Sacrifices

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

Deuteronomy 17:1 — Detestable Sacrifices. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

1

You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep with any defect or serious flaw, for that is detestable to the LORD your God.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

lō- ṯiz·baḥ Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā šō·wr wā·śeh ’ă·šer yih·yeh ḇōw mūm kōl rā‘ dā·ḇār kî hū ṯō·w·‘ă·ḇaṯ Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā

Word by word18 · parsed
לֹא־lō-You shall notH3808
√ lôʼ — not (the simple or absAdverbNegative particle
lōʼ + imperfect (H3808) — an absolute prohibition, the legal "thou shalt not," standing emphatically first in the clause. The same apodictic form heads the original holiness statute (Lev 22:20).
תִזְבַּח֩ṯiz·baḥsacrificeH2076
√ zâbach — to slaughter an animal (usually in sacrifice)VerbQalImperfectsecond person masculine singular
tizbaḥ (H2076) — Qal imperfect, 2ms: the cultic verb "to slaughter-as-offering." Its presence (not the broader qārab, "bring near") narrows the law specifically to what is laid on YHWH's altar; the act of zābaḥ is what the defect spoils.
לַיהוָ֨הYah·wehto the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodPreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
la-YHWH — the prefixed preposition l- marks the direction of the gift: the offering is to the covenant LORD by name. The flaw is an affront precisely because of whose table it approaches.
אֱלֹהֶ֜יךָ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵāyour GodH430
√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseNounmasculine plural constructsecond person masculine singular
ʼĕlōheḵā (H430) — "your God," the 2ms suffix binding the worshiper personally to the One worshiped; the relationship is what the blemish insults.
שׁ֣וֹרšō·wran oxH7794
√ shôwr — a bullock (as a traveller)Nounmasculine singular
šōwr (H7794) — the ox, the costliest of the herd; named first as the greatest of acceptable victims.
וָשֶׂ֗הwā·śehor a sheepH7716
√ seh — a member of a flock, iConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular
wā-śeh (H7716) — "or a sheep"; Ellicott notes the term sêh covers either a lamb or a kid. Benson and JFB read ox-and-sheep as a merism: greater and smaller offerings, the whole range of sacrifice comprehended under its two most eminent kinds.
אֲשֶׁ֨ר’ă·šerH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
יִהְיֶ֥הyih·yehH1961
√ hâyâh — to exist, iVerbQalImperfectthird person masculine singular
בוֹ֙ḇōw
Prepositionthird person masculine singular
מ֔וּםmūmwith any defectH3971
√ mʼûwm — to stainNounmasculine singular
mûm (H3971) — the key word. A genuinely rare term (only nineteen occurrences canon-wide), it names a visible bodily blemish. The same word disqualifies a priest from serving (Lev 21:17-23) and, inverted, praises the flawless bride of the Song (4:7, "no mûm in thee"). What is forbidden on the altar is the very thing later said to be absent in the spotless.
כֹּ֖לkōl[or]H3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeNounmasculine singular construct
רָ֑עrā‘seriousH7451
√ raʻ — bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral)Adjectivemasculine singular
rāʻ (H7451) — "evil," the broad word for what is bad whether by nature or morality; here a physical maim, but its moral overtone is unavoidable in a law about what is fit for a holy God.
דָּבָ֣רdā·ḇārflawH1697
√ dâbâr — a wordNounmasculine singular
dāḇār (H1697) — "word, thing, matter." Paired with rāʻ it yields the deliberately open-ended "any evil thing," so that no loophole of defect escapes the prohibition.
כִּ֧יkîforH3588
√ kîy — (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below)Conjunction
הֽוּא׃סhūthatH1931
√ hûwʼ — he (she or it)Pronounthird person masculine singular
hūʼ (H1931) — the resumptive pronoun "that/it," gathering up the whole blemished offering as the subject of the verdict: it is this thing — not the worshiper's intent — that is named abomination.
תוֹעֲבַ֛תṯō·w·‘ă·ḇaṯis detestableH8441
√ tôwʻêbah — properly, something disgusting (morally), iNounfeminine singular construct
tôʻēḇaṯ YHWH (H8441) — "an abomination to YHWH," among the gravest verdicts in Deuteronomy's vocabulary, applied elsewhere to idols and child-sacrifice (Deut 18:12). To offer the blemished is not merely careless; it is placed in the same moral register as idolatry — the chapter's actual subject opens with idolaters punished by death (vv. 2-7).
יְהוָ֥הYah·wehto the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵāyour GodH430
√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseNounmasculine plural constructsecond person masculine singular

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The blemish you can see — Deuteronomy 17:1

The verse opens with an absolute lōʼ tizbaḥ — "you shall not sacrifice" — and the verb (H2076, zābaḥ) already carries the altar within it: not any handling of an animal but the act of laying it before YHWH your God. What disqualifies the gift is a mûm (H3971), a word whose root means literally to stain and which the Hebrew Bible uses only nineteen times. It is a flaw you can see on the hide. The law then widens to kōl rāʻ dāḇār — "any evil thing" — which Barnes, the Pulpit Commentary, and Keil & Delitzsch each insist must be rendered woodenly. The Pulpit Commentary is exact: "Evil-favoredness ; literally, any evil thing , i . e . any vice or maim." As Jamieson, Fausset & Brown read it, ox and sheep stand for the whole range of sacrifice, "either greater or smaller sacrifices, all being comprehended under the two most eminent kinds."

ii. Why a defect is an abomination — Deuteronomy 17:1

The verdict is severe: the blemished offering is an abomination — tôʻēḇaṯ YHWH (H8441), the same word Deuteronomy spends on idols and child-sacrifice (18:12). Ellicott grounds the severity in God himself: "The holiness of the God of Israel necessitates them all. Truth, justice, and purity are demanded in all that come nigh Him." Keil & Delitzsch set the offense in its chapter: it is "the offering of an ox or sheep that had some fault, which was an abomination in the sight of Jehovah" — a cultic crime ranked beside the nature-worship the chapter punishes by death. Benson reduces it to a single line — "All that God receives he requires to be perfect" — observing that Moses here interposes a caution against profaneness in Israel's own worship of the true God, set immediately beside the law against idolatry. The Geneva Study Bible turns the lens inward: "You shall not serve God for selfish means as the hypocrites do." The defect on the animal is, for these readers, a defect in the worshiper — a heart that hands God its leftovers.

iii. The flawless victim — Deuteronomy 17:1

John Gill reads the law typologically, hearing in the unblemished beast a foreshadow: it is "typical of the unblemished and immaculate Lamb of God, who, being without sin, offered himself without spot to God, and so could take away the sins of others by the sacrifice of himself." Matthew Henry presses the same edge two directions at once — toward Christ and back upon us: "We are thus called to remember the perfect, pure, and spotless sacrifice of Christ, and reminded to serve God with the best of our abilities, time, and possession, or our pretended obedience will be hateful to him." The very word forbidden here, mûm, returns inverted in the Song of Songs — "there is no blemish in thee" (4:7) — and in 1 Peter 1:19 the figure lands: a lamb "without blemish and without spot."

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

Read under Sola Scriptura, this single verse refuses to let worship be a matter of feeling alone. The flaw is mûm — a stain on the visible body of the gift — and the verb of giving, zābaḥ, is the altar-word. So the law measures worship not by sincerity but by what is actually placed before God. The same statute that disqualifies a maimed ox is recorded in the same breath as the law executing idolaters (vv. 2-7), and both wear the one word tôʻēḇāh, abomination: Scripture itself sets the careless offering and the false god on the same shelf of horror. The honest reading — to be tested against the whole canon, and against the immaculate Lamb the New Testament names — is that God's holiness makes the cost of the gift inseparable from the love behind it. A blemished gift is not a small gift; it is a different god being served.

A blemished gift is not a smaller gift — it is the report of a divided heart. (This line is the tool's reading, not Scripture.)

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The twin blemish-laws of Deuteronomy structural / thematic — confirmed

Deuteronomy 15:21 already forbids offering a firstling that is lame or blind or has "any serious flaw"; 17:1 restates the principle for the general sacrifice. Barnes names the relation exactly: 17:1 "prohibits once more (compare Deuteronomy 15:21) that form of insult to God which consists in offering to Him a blemished sacrifice." The two verses share the rare word mûm (H3971, in only 19 verses) together with the sacrifice-verb zābaḥ (H2076) — a strong intra-book restatement. We tier it structural, not verbal: it is the same statute renewed, not a quotation, and the Verifier returns structural even with the rare lexeme present.

Deuteronomy 15:21

basis: shared rare lexeme H3971 mʼûwm (only 19 vv canon-wide) plus H2076 zâbach; Verifier returns 'structural / thematic — confirmed' — a restatement of the same blemish-law within Deuteronomy, not a quotation. Downgraded from a draft 'verbal' overclaim.

The Levitical fountainhead (Lev 22) structural / thematic — confirmed

Nearly every commentator here — Ellicott, Benson, Barnes, JFB, Gill, the Pulpit, Keil & Delitzsch — points back to Leviticus 22:17-25 as the full law of which Deuteronomy 17:1 is the echo. JFB: "The qualifications required in animals destined for sacrifice are described (Le 1:3)... See Leviticus 22:20,21." The shared rare word mûm (H3971) binds 17:1 to Leviticus 22:20-21, the original holiness statute, which opens with the same apodictic lōʼ. The link is the source-law behind the restatement — structural, not a verbal citation.

Leviticus 22:20 · Leviticus 22:21

basis: shared rare lexeme H3971 mʼûwm (only 19 vv canon-wide) plus apodictic H3808 lôʼ; Verifier returns 'structural / thematic — confirmed' for both Lev 22:20 and 22:21 — the source holiness-law Deut 17:1 restates. Downgraded from a draft 'verbal' overclaim.

Malachi's indictment of blemished offerings structural / thematic — confirmed

Ellicott observes that "the only time in history when the sacrifice of imperfect creatures is complained of to any great extent is the time of the prophet Malachi," and Gill cites Malachi 1:8 directly. There Israel offers the blind, lame, and sick — exactly what Deut 17:1 forbids — and God calls it evil. The link is thematic: Malachi 1:8 shares the sacrifice-verb zābaḥ (H2076) and the word for what is rāʻ/evil (H7451), but not the rare mûm; the connection is the prophet measuring Israel against this very statute.

Malachi 1:8

basis: shared lexemes H2076 zâbach + H7451 raʻ (no rare term shared); Verifier-confirmed structural. Malachi 1:7-14 is the prophetic application of the blemish-law, attested by Ellicott and Gill.

The unblemished bride and the disqualified priest structural / thematic — confirmed

The same rare word mûm (H3971) that bars an animal from the altar bars a priest from the sanctuary (Leviticus 21:17-23: "a man... that hath any blemish, he shall not approach") and, turned to praise, describes the flawless beloved of the Song: "thou art all fair, my love; there is no blemish in thee" (Song 4:7). The motif is a single Hebrew word stretched across victim, priest, and bride — the canon's vocabulary of the unflawed.

Leviticus 21:21 · Song of Solomon 4:7

basis: shared rare lexeme H3971 mʼûwm (only 19 vv canon-wide) used of priest (Lev 21:21) and bride (Song 4:7); Verifier-confirmed structural — a motif-link, not a quotation.

Abomination — the word that names idolatry structural / thematic — confirmed

The verdict tôʻēḇaṯ YHWH (H8441, "abomination to the LORD") that 17:1 pronounces on a defective sacrifice is the very term Deuteronomy 18:12 uses for divination and the occult: "all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD." JFB notes "An abomination, i.e. abominable, as Deu 18:12." Scripture files the careless offering and the false practice under one word of horror — a structural link through the shared term tôʻēḇāh.

Deuteronomy 18:12

basis: shared lexeme H8441 tôwʻêbah (112 vv); Verifier-confirmed structural — the same abomination-verdict applied to blemished sacrifice and to occult practice, noted by JFB.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The Lamb without blemish ancient/widely-held

The New Testament reaches for this exact image: "ye were redeemed... with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:18-19), and "Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God" (Hebrews 9:14). John Gill, on this verse, already reads the unblemished ox and sheep as "typical of the unblemished and immaculate Lamb of God, who, being without sin, offered himself without spot to God." The Levitical demand that the victim bear no mûm is fulfilled in the One who bore no sin. This is a cross-Testament figural reading: the Greek NT cannot share the Hebrew Strong's number for mûm, so the basis is conceptual — the spotless victim — and the tier is typological, never verbal.

1 Peter 1:19 · Hebrews 9:14

The sacrifice that is not detestable widely-held

If the blemished gift is tôʻēḇāh — an abomination — then the perfect sacrifice is its opposite: "a sweet-smelling savour" (Ephesians 5:2), an offering God receives because nothing in it is evil. Matthew Henry hears in Deut 17:1 the call "to remember the perfect, pure, and spotless sacrifice of Christ." Where Israel's flawed offering exposes a divided heart, Christ's flawless self-offering is the whole heart given. The connection is typological and figural, not a shared lexeme — the law's negative (no defect tolerated) answered by the gospel's positive (one offering with no defect at all).

Ephesians 5:2 · Hebrews 10:14

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

This unit is a single Hebrew verse, so every cross-reference is Hebrew→Hebrew except the two Christ readings, which are cross-Testament and therefore tiered typological, never verbal — a Greek NT verse cannot share a Hebrew Strong's number, so the basis is conceptual (the spotless victim), as stated. The strongest internal links rest on mûm (H3971), genuinely rare at 19 canon-wide occurrences. The draft tiered the Deut 15:21 and Lev 22:20-21 threads "verbal — confirmed"; on review these have been downgraded to structural. The Verifier returns "structural / thematic — confirmed" for each, and the relation is a restatement / source-law of the same blemish statute rather than a quotation or an explicit citation — the honest tier is structural even though the lexeme is rare. The Malachi and Deut 18:12 threads share only common verbs/nouns (zābaḥ, rāʻ, tôʻēḇāh) and are tiered thematic accordingly. The translation divergences ("defect" for mûm, "serious flaw" for kōl rāʻ dāḇār, "detestable" for the noun tôʻēḇāh) are flagged because each English choice softens a starker Hebrew word; the wooden "any evil thing" is the consensus literal rendering of Barnes, the Pulpit Commentary, and Keil & Delitzsch. No NT-citation provenance is in play in this unit, so no thread is flagged "verify source." Christ-readings are marked ancient/widely-held: the spotless-Lamb typology is explicit in 1 Peter and Hebrews and is not novel to this tool.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)