This past week we took a look at why Cain offered a sacrifice to God, and why God rejected Cain’s sacrifice, but accepted Abel’s. Here is a lighthearted perspective on why Cain’s sacrifice was better…
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Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob led their families in sacrifice to God. But the Hebrew text must be looked at closely. While most English versions say that Abraham “built an altar” to God (Gen. 13:18), we usually get a mental picture of a simple pile of stones upon which Abraham then worshipped. Why we have this nice looking mental picture is understandable, since many Churches have “altars” and they are usually very nice looking structures. However, the Hebrew word translated “altar” is mizbeach, and it means “place of slaughter.”
In his brilliant translation of Genesis through Deuteronomy, Everett Fox never uses “altar,” but instead uses the phrase “slaughter site.” The “altars” of biblical times were smelly, blood-covered, fly-infested places that no one wanted close to his tent, and which graphically reminded any worshipper of the messy and deadly-serious consequences of sin.
I love Everett Fox. What a brilliant scholar. I did not know he wrote about it this way in his translation. So much better (and accurate).