Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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other blemish than this, it might be accepted for a free-will offering, to which a man had not before laid himself, nor had the divine law laid him, under any particular obligation; but for a vow it might not be accepted. Thus God would teach us to make conscience of performing our promises to him very exactly, and not afterwards to abate in quantity or value of what we had solemnly engaged to devote to him. What was, before the vow, in our own power, as in the case of a free-will offering, afterwards is not, Ac 5:4. It is again and again declared that no sacrifice should be accepted if it was thus blemished, Le 22:20,21. According to this law great care was taken to search all the beasts that were brought to be sacrificed, that there might, to a certainty, be no blemish in them. A blemished sacrifice might not be accepted even from the hand of a stranger, though to such all possible encouragement should be given to do honour to the God of Israel, Le 22:25. By this it appears that strangers were expected to come to the house of God from a far country (1Ki 8:41,42), and that they should be welcome, and their offerings accepted, as those of Darius, Ezr 6:9,10,Isa 56:6,7. The heathen priests were many of them not so strict in this matter, but would receive sacrifices for their gods that were ever so scandalous; but let strangers know that the God of Israel would not be so served. Now,
1. This law was then necessary for the preserving of the honour of the sanctuary, and of the God that was there worshipped. It was fit that every thing that was employed for his honour should be the best of the kind; for, as he is the greatest and brightest, so he is the best of beings; and he that is the best must have the best. See how greatly and justly displeasing the breach of this law was to the holy God, Mal 1:8,13,14.
2. This law made all the legal sacrifices the fitter to be types of Christ, the great sacrifice from which all these derived their virtue. In allusion to this law, he is said to be a Lamb