In verse 21, YHWH goes so far as to say that He hates and despises their feasts. While “hates and despises” is not a wrong translation, a better and more apt one is that YHWH hates and rejects their feasts. That is because while our knee-jerk reaction is to make the term “hate” into one of intense emotional dislike, that is not the case here. Biblically, hate is the opposite of love. And far more often than not, biblically speaking love is meant in the sense of allegiance and faithfulness; not of emotional warm affections. Therefore, to hate is to reverse allegiance; to hate is refuse or to dissolve allegiance. Thus, to hate involves rejection of the hated person, and rejection is the better translation for the Hebrew word used here, which is ma’ac. In fact, says YHWH, He also hates (He rejects) all of their solemn assemblies…no doubt meaning assemblies other than the annual feasts such as perhaps special occasions of communal worship. And, by the way, don’t think of those occasions of communal worship in terms of Church-like or Synagogue-like weekly meetings. There is no evidence within the Bible, nor from other ancient Jewish sources, that weekly assemblies ever occurred in Israel’s history until well after Judah’s return from their Babylonian exile.
Tom Bradford
21 окт 2024
