laws of ritual added to the prophetic and spiritual principles of the
Book.(295) Another possibility is that Jeremiah had in view those first
essays in writing of a purely priestly law-book, which resulted during the
Exile in the so-called Priests' Code now incorporated in the Pentateuch.
In our ignorance both of the original form of Deuteronomy and of the
extent and character of the activity of the scribes during the reign of
Josiah we might hesitate to decide among these possibilities were it not
for the following address which there is no good reason for denying to
Jeremiah.

VII. 21. Thus saith the Lord,(296) Your burnt offerings add to
your sacrifices and eat flesh(297)! 22. For I spake not with your
fathers nor charged them, in the day that I brought them forth
from the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offering and sacrifice.
23. But with this Word I charged them, saying, Hearken to My
Voice, and I shall be to you God, and ye shall be to Me a people,
and ye shall walk in every way that I charge you, that it may be
well with you.

Whether from Jeremiah or not, this is one of the most critical texts of
the Old Testament because while repeating what the Prophet has already
fervently accepted,(298) that the terms of the deuteronomic Covenant were
simply obedience to the ethical demands of God, it contradicts Deuteronomy
and even more strongly Leviticus, in their repeated statements that in the
wilderness God also commanded sacrifices. The issue is so grave that there
have been attempts to evade it. None, however, can be regarded as
successful. That which would weaken the Hebrew phrase, rightly rendered
_concerning_ by our versions, into _for the sake of_ or _in the interest
of_ (as if all the speaker intended was that animal sacrifice was not the
chief end or main interest of the Divine legislation) is doubtful
philologically, nor meets the fact that all the Hebrew codes assign an
indispensable value to sacrifice. Inadmissible also is the suggestion that
the phrase means _concerning the details of_, for Deuteronomy and
especially Leviticus emphasise the details of burnt-offering and
sacrifice. Nor is the plausible argument convincing that the Prophet spoke
relatively, and meant only what Samuel meant by _Obedience is better than
sacrifice_, or Hosea by _The Knowledge of God is more than
burnt-offerings_.(299) Nor are there grounds for thinking that the Prophet
had in view only the