Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 21:3
To do justice and judgment [is] more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
3. Comp. 1Sa 15:22; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:6-8.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Compare the marginal reference. The words have a special significance as coming from the king who had built the temple, and had offered sacrifices that could not be numbered for multitude 1Ki 8:5.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Pro 21:3
To do Justice and Judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.
Ceremonial and moral duties
This text is a complete and independent sentence. Confirm the proposition deduced from the text–
I. From other places of Scripture. We find God rejecting and abhorring sacrifices if they were not accompanied with a real repentance and inward sincerity of mind, and the outward works of mercy and justice (Pro 21:27; Mic 6:6-7; Isa 1:11).
II. From the different nature of these two duties, and the different grounds from whence ariseth our obligation to them. Sacrifice was grounded upon a positive precept and institution, but justice has its foundation in the nature of God. If we consult merely natural light, we shall discover no necessary foundations in that for sacrifices. As the notion of God includes in it all possible and conceivable perfection, we discern justice to be one of His most essential attributes.
III. From the different ends of these two duties. Sacrifice was not enjoined for its own sake, but justice always was, and is, and ever will be. Sacrifices were ordained to be types of Christ, who was to be offered up in the fulness of time upon the Cross. Sacrifices were enjoined to be as a guard and security for other duties, to be as a hedge and a fence for the moral precepts, and especially to defend the Jews against idolatry. Evidently the goodness of this duty of sacrifice was not natural and intrinsical, but relative and external. But justice was, and is, and ever will be, enjoined for its own sake. It has a natural goodness and beauty in it which, at all times, and in all ages, recommends it to the practice of mankind. Justice is a duty that ariseth from the moral frame and constitution of our souls, and we must offer violence to ourselves, if we be not just to others.
IV. From the different effects of these two duties. The effect of sacrifices was the expiation of legal guilt. For deeper guilt no sacrifices were appointed. It is otherwise in the distribution of justice. An impartial execution of that in magistrates and judges does not only put a stop to the growth and increase of sin, but it also appeaseth the wrath and disarms the severity of God. (William Stainforth, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. To do justice and judgment] The words of Samuel to Saul. 1Sa 15:23.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Justice and judgment; the conscientious performance of all our duties to men.
Than sacrifice; than the most costly outward services offered to God, joined with the neglect of our moral duties to God or men. The same thing is affirmed 1Sa 15:22; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:7.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. (Compare Psa 50:7-15;Isa 1:11; Isa 1:17).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
To do justice and judgment,…. The moral duties of religion, what is holy, just, and good, which the law requires; what is agreeably to both tables, piety towards God, and justice to men; that which is just and right between man and man; which, especially if done from right principles and with right views,
[is] more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice; not than any sacrifice; than the sacrifice of a broken heart, or the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, or of acts of goodness and beneficence, or of a man’s whole self to the Lord; but than ceremonial sacrifices; which, though of divine institution, and typical of Christ, and when offered up in the faith of him, were acceptable to God, while in force; yet not when done without faith and in hypocrisy, and especially when done to cover and countenance immoral actions; and, even when compared with moral duties, the latter were preferable to them; see 1Sa 15:22.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
3 To practice justice and right
Hath with Jahve the pre-eminence above sacrifice.
We have already (vol. i. p. 42) shown how greatly this depreciation of the works of the ceremonial cultus, as compared with the duties of moral obedience, is in the spirit of the Chokma; cf. also at Pro 15:8. Prophecy also gives its testimony, e.g., Hos 6:7, according to which also here (cf. Pro 20:8 with Isa 9:8) the practising of (sequence of words as at Gen 18:19; Psa 33:5, elsewhere , and yet more commonly ) does not denote legal rigour, but the practising of the justum et aequum , or much rather the aequum et bonum , thus in its foundation conduct proceeding from the principle of love. The inf. (like , Pro 16:16) occurs three times (here and at Gen 50:20; Psa 101:3); once is written (Gen 31:18), as also in the infin. absol. the form mro and interchange ( vid., Norzi at Jer 22:4); once for (Exo 18:18) occurs in the status conjunctus.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
3 To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
Here, 1. It is implied that many deceive themselves with a conceit that, if they offer sacrifice, that will excuse them from doing justice, and procure them a dispensation for their unrighteousness; and this makes their way seem right, v. 2. We have fasted, Isa. lviii. 3. I have peace-offerings with me, Prov. vii. 14. 2. It is plainly declared that living a good life (doing justly and loving mercy) is more pleasing to God than the most pompous and expensive instances of devotion. Sacrifices were of divine institution, and were acceptable to God if they were offered in faith and with repentance, otherwise not, Isa. i. 11, c. But even then moral duties were preferred before them (1 Sam. xv. 22), which intimates that their excellency was not innate nor the obligation to them perpetual, Mic. vi. 6-8. Much of religion lies in doing judgment and justice from a principle of duty to God, contempt of the world, and love to our neighbour and this is more pleasing to God than all burnt-offerings and sacrifices, Mark xii. 33.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Better Than Sacrifice
Verse 3 – See comment on Pro 15:8, also 1Sa 15:22; Isa 1:11; Hos 6:6; Mat 12:7.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro. 21:3
THE MORE ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE
I. The sacrifices of the Mosaic law were acceptable to God as ceremonial signs. They were instituted by God, and therefore He expected them to be offered, and was displeased when His commands concerning them were disregarded. But they were but the means to an end, and if they did not lead to that end they were worthless in His sight. They were intended to awaken a sense of sin, and to be accompanied by observance of higher precepts and by obedience to more enduring laws. It availed nothing for a man to offer his bullock or his goat unless he laid his will upon the altar at the same timeno sin-offering could be acceptable to God unless the sin was put away, and no meat-offering could be regarded with favour if the heart of the offerer was without love to his neighbour and his life was marked by acts of injustice to him. It was of no avail to come before the Lord with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil unless the higher requirement was fulfilledto do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God (Mic. 6:7-8).
II. The doing of justice and judgment is more acceptable to God because it is a moral reality. To love our neighbour as ourself is in itself good,it is a moral attribute, an element of character, a part of the man himself. It is an expression of love to God and of obedience to His commands which can be made anywhere and at all times, for to do justice and judgment is the law of the moral universe, and belongs to heaven as much as to earth. It is to do what God has been doing from all eternity, for it is written that they are the habitation of His throne (Psa. 89:14). All other offerings without these are vain oblations and even an abomination (Isa. 1:13) unto Him who owns every beast of the forest and the cattle upon a thousand hills (Psa. 50:10). To expect a holy and spiritual Being to accept anything less than a moral reality is to expect Him to be satisfied with less than would often content a fellow-creature.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Sacrifice; literally, slaughter. But with slender exceptions, the slaughter is a slaughter for sacrifice. He did not love the slaughtering of His Son upon the cross. He did not love the slaughtering of beasts year by year continually. On the contrary, He does love righteousness, and, therefore, He does love, in the severities that men impugn, that very element of right which is the attribute that they would bring into the question. Doing righteousness Himself, He prefers the right-doing of His creatures to any form of sacrifice or possible service they can ever render.Miller.
Sacrifice at best is only circumstantially goodrectitude is essentially so. Sacrifice, at best, is only the means and expression of good; rectitude is goodness itself. God accepts the moral without the ceremonial, but never the ceremonial without the moral. The universe can exist without of the ceremonial, but not without the moral.David Thomas.
This maxim of the Proverbs was a bold saying thenit is a bold saying still; but it well unites the wisdom of Solomon with that of his father in the 51st Psalm, and with the inspiration the later prophets.Stanley.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(3) To do justice and judgment, &cSee above on Pro. 10:2.
Is more acceptable than sacrifice.See above on 15:8.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. More acceptable Is chosen, is preferred. “This maxim was a bold saying then; it is a bold saying still; but it well unites the wisdom of Solomon with that of his father David, in the Fifty-first Psalm, and with the inspiration of the prophets.” Dean Stanley. Compare Pro 15:8; 1Sa 15:22; Hos 6:6; Mic 4:7-8; Psa 51:16-17; Mat 9:13; Mat 12:7, etc.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
v. 3. To do justice and judgment,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Pro 21:3 To do justice and judgment [is] more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
Ver. 3. Is more acceptable to the Lord. ] Qui non vult ex rapina holocaustum, as heathens could see and say by the light of nature. The Jews thought to expiate their miscarriages toward men, and to set off with God by their ceremonies and sacrifices. Isa 1:11-15 Jer 7:21-26 Mic 6:6-8 Some heathens also, as that Roman emperor, could say, Non sic deos coluimus ut ille nos vinceret, We have not been at so much charge with the gods that they should give us up into the enemy’s hands. But the Scripture gave the Jews to understand that “to obey was better than sacrifice,” that God “would have mercy and not sacrifice,” and that for a man to “love God above all, and his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burntofferings and sacrifices.” Mar 12:33 The heathens also were told as much by their sages, as Plato in his book intituled , where Socrates, reprehending the gilt horned bulls of the Greeks, and the sumptuous sacrifices of the Trojans at length infers – , &c. It were a grievous thing if the gods should more respect men’s offerings and sacrifices than the holiness of their hearts, and the righteousness of their lives, &c. Aristotle in his Rhetorics, ‘ O Y , &c., saith he. It is not likely that God takes pleasure in the costliness of sacrifices, but rather in the good conversation of the sacrificers.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
justice = righteousness.
more acceptable, &c. Illustrations: Saul (1Sa 13:10-13; 1Sa 15:22); Israel (Jer 7:22, Jer 7:23. Amo 5:21-24); Judah (Isa 1:11-17); Pharisees (Mat 9:13). Note the contrast, Pro 21:4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Pro 21:3
Pro 21:3
“To do righteousness and justice Is more acceptable to Jehovah than sacrifice.” Both the Old Testament and the New Testament stress the truth stated here. “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1Sa 15:22). “Ye tithe mint, anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy and truth” (Mat 23:23).
Pro 21:3. There are all kinds of people in the world: some who are both righteous and religious (the godly); some who seek to be righteous but are not religious (the moralist); some who are not careful about righteousness but do try to be religious (the hypocrite); and some who are neither righteous nor religious (the out-and-out wicked). This verse is dealing with the third-listed group above (the hypocrite). We all fall short of the perfection of God (Rom 3:23), but with our religion we are to be as righteous and as just as we can be, and if we arent, God is highly displeased with us (Isa 1:11; Isa 1:15; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:7-8) Pro 15:8).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Pro 15:8, 1Sa 15:22, Psa 50:8, Isa 1:11-17, Jer 7:21-23, Hos 6:6, Mic 6:6-8, Mar 12:33
Reciprocal: Exo 32:29 – Moses Jdg 20:8 – We will not 1Sa 13:9 – he offered 1Sa 20:24 – the king 2Ch 9:8 – to do judgment Jer 22:15 – and do Eze 18:5 – that Eze 45:10 – General Hos 12:6 – keep Amo 5:24 – let Mic 6:8 – to do Zec 7:9 – saying Zec 14:20 – shall there Mat 9:13 – I will Mat 23:23 – the weightier Luk 11:42 – and pass Eph 5:10 – acceptable