Long before animal sacrifices were commanded to Moses, the law of sacrificing existed LONG BEFORE the old covenant!
The first known sacrifice:
Done by God himself right after the first known humans committed the first recorded sin against him
What seems like the very first sacrifice recorded in the Bible (and history) was when Adam (and Eve) disobeyed God’s command for them to not eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil:
As covered in more detail in the Edenic covenant, immediately after they ate the forbidden fruit, they realized they were naked and felt shame about being exposed for the first time:
Genesis 3:7
“...and they realized they were naked;…”
Once they felt this shame of being naked they went to a fig tree growing in the garden and tried to sow loincloths/light coverings out of the giant fig leaves to hide their exposed shame:
Genesis 3:7
“... so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
God then found out they knew they were naked and felt shame from it to hide and found out they had disobeyed him and ate the forbidden fruit, so he cursed them with various curses and even death; so with that they had officially disobeyed his direct command and thus committed humanities first known sin.
However, God seemed to not approve of their own efforts to cover their nude bodies, so God decided to help them and made clothes for them. This was the first thing God did after he got though punishing them:
Genesis 3:21
“The Lord God made garments…for Adam and his wife…”
God covered their nakedness with clothes made by himself, but these clothes were different than theirs:
Genesis 3:21
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife…”
Genesis 3:21
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
These clothes were not made from leaves like Adam and Eve originally made for their nakedness:
But rather the clothes God gave them were made of somethings skin that was once alive! This meant God (logically) had to kill an innocent animal to make their skin clothing!
If this was true; that God killed an animal to make these clothes, this would also have been the first recorded slaughter of an animal in the Bible (and history)
But why did he do this?
Why didn’t he just make them clothes out of trees/leaves like they did without killing anything in the process? Why did he make them clothes out of an innocent animal’s skin that (most likely) had to die to be skinned?
While answer is not directly stated in the passage; it does seem like God was trying to cover their shame in a way it seemed they could not and through this possibly showing/symbolizing it was only by HIS actions and the possible murder of an innocent animal’s skin that there shame/nakedness was covered properly.
Could this have been the very first animal sacrifice (or any sacrifice) ever done? Was God teaching Adam and Eve about animal sacrifices by doing this? And was he also teaching them the reason for why they now needed to have animal/any sacrifices:
Since they disobeyed/sinned against him that their had to be a sacrifice approved of by God himself to cover the shame of their sin properly?
If this was, the case of when God first officially introduced and commanded sacrifice; then this would have been why God killed an animal to give them clothes made from it’s skin, however even if this was not the time this law was eventually given to Adam and Eve and their children in the near future:
The law of sacrifices and offerings eventually given to Adam and Eve and their children
Even if God did not directly tell Adam and Eve of sacrifices/offerings before/during this event, eventually at some point between that time and the maturity of their first known children Cain and Able, they were eventually commanded (and possibly even taught why) by God to burn the best and finest sacrifices of animals (and animal fat) and produce they grew on an alter to God:
This is made clear that God had spoken about burnt sacrifices and offerings at some point because Adam’s first known children: Cain and Able were giving burnt offering to God on an alter by killing animals and burning their fat or burning their produce:
Genesis 4:2-4
“Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. ”
An offering is defined as:
“Something freely given to someone else to please or for the benefit of the other.”[1]
Also the original word for offering was the Hebrew “מִנְחָה” (min-khaw') meaning offering or a gift or tribute[2]
So in this case, they were taught to give the best of their work (in this case livestock or produce) freely to God on an alter to burn.
This is also a Sacrifice which is defined as:
“Something given up from someone and given to something else in exchange for another thing.”[3]
Now this is a very confusing definition that seems to make no sense, but in a specific case it can be clarified:
For instance, Parents give up their free time to do what they want to do and give it to their children in exchange to raise them with that time and bond with them.
This is a sacrifice!
However, in Cain and Able’s case this sacrifice would have been Giving up some of their finest Goods (livestock and produce) and giving it to God by killing it on an alter and setting it on fire and burning in exchange to obey God, win his favor, and not sin.
And God approved of the burnt offerings given to him:
Genesis 4:4
“The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,...”
And this is traditionally what a physical Sacrifice is; it is an offering of food, objects, or the lives of animals/even humans to a higher purpose, in particular divine beings, as an act of pleasing/making something right or worshiping [4].
This is something previously not mentioned to Adam and Eve or in Eden, So we see their children must have been taught to do this at some point in their lives wherever it was by their parents, God himself, or both is not stated, but they logically had to learn it from somewhere.
Regardless of how and when God commanded sacrifice This was done (or at least known) by all of Adam’s descendants (called Adamites) by everyone who wanted to follow God and obey him. After Noah was saved from the destructive flood he almost immediately made an alter to God and killed some animals from the ark to give him a burnt sacrifice to God in honor of saving and sparing their lives:
Genesis 8:20-21
“Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of…the animals and…birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.”
God smelt the smoke of the burnt offerings and was pleased with Noah and gave him peace with Adamites/humans because of his burnt offering:
Genesis 8:20-21
“The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans …’”
Because of this burnt offering, God was pleased and blessed Noah, his sons, and all the animals saved in the ark and made a new covenant of peace with them:
Genesis 9:1
“…Then God blessed Noah and his sons…”
Noah and his sons most likely knew the importance of sacrifice to God was and most likely taught their children to sacrifice as well, however as many Noahites (possibly even some of Noah’s own sons or grandchildren) began to make up and worship false gods they also began to offer their sacrifices to them instead of God:
Which would have most likely been insulting and offensive to God and make him angry at their rebellion.
As many early Noahite nations began to completely forget God and the covenant, he made with them some also even began offering human sacrifices to their false gods! God never would have commanded a human sacrifice to himself:
that would have been considered murder to him: only animals and produce were known to have been the only known acceptable sacrifices to God. Therefore these Noahic (which eventually became ancient pagan nations) most likely made God horrified and angry with them for their rebellion towards him (just like the former generation of Adamites did) yet he in general let these rebellious Noahites go and didn’t really do nothing (or nothing recorded in the Bible anyways) to correct their sin; he continued to let them sacrifice their abominable human sacrifices to their false gods in their ignorance.
He chose to reveal himself to Abram, and he began to build alters to God (and though it, sacrificed burnt offerings to him):
Genesis 15:8-9
“But Abram said, ‘Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?’ So the Lord said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, [and arrange them in opposite halves[5]] along with a dove and a young pigeon.’”
In order to answer Abram’s question, he commanded a very specific animal sacrifices given to him; but unlike all known former sacrifices that were always burnt offerings he did not command Abram to burn the animal sacrifices but rather to just kill them and cut the livestock in opposite halves (that is the three-year-old heifer [a female cow] goat and ram [wild male goat]). and lay them (most likely on an alter he built) for him; and Abram obeyed God exactly by doing all of this:
Genesis 15:10
“Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.”
And in return, God put Abram in a deep sleep and told him in a vision what would happen for all these promises to happen:
Genesis 15:12-13
“As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain… the fourth generation your descendants will [inherit this land]...’”
And also made the covenant of how much land he would give to his descendants because he obedience to sacrifice exactly what he wanted and how he wanted:
Genesis 15:18
“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates…’”
The smoking oven with a blazing torch coming out of it:
Genesis 15:17
“When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces."
This was God’s way of confirming he accepted Abram’s sacrifice and was officially promising Abram’s descendants they would definitely come to own the land of Canaan (and even much more than that!).
All that came from Abram’s obedient to God’s command to sacrifice exactly what he wanted to him and the way he wanted it to!
As told before: the Noahites kept the command of sacrificing but not to the one true God but rather fake gods of their own imagination; and did not just keep to sacrificing the only known acceptable sacrifices of animals and produce: they also began to sacrifice other human beings as well to their gods (which as also covered before would have been evil to God and murder).
God had never been recorded commanding a human sacrifice to himself (infact he basically forbid it in the Noahic covenant!) and Abraham would have definitely have known about human sacrifice being surrounded by pagan nations and people (like the local native Canaanite nations who had many human sacrifices to their false Canaanite gods like Moleck) but he also have known that a human sacrifice to God was highly unacceptable and considered murder (which is why he is never recorded doing it).
However, despite all this, when Abrham had finally had his promised firstborn son of his wife Sarah born; God asked the most unexpected and (seemingly) crazy thing that Abraham must have been shocked to hear:
He asked for a human sacrifice! But not just any human: he wanted him to sacrifice his holy chosen firstborn son he had waited his whole life to get: Isaac!
Genesis 22:1-2
“…Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.’ “
Not only was this the first human sacirifce God had ever commanded, but it was the very son he vowed to give Abraham and this son’s children would be his chosen people forever:
None of what God commaded to Abraham (at first) made any sense; he most likely knew it was wrong to murder a human as sacrifice and especially the son God gave him, yet he humbly obeyed God’s order anyway:
hoping he would somehow save his dear son Isaac from being killed in this sacrifice.
Genesis 22:3-4
“Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac...he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance…”
As they went up the mountain, Isaac was wondering where the actual sacrifice was:
Genesis 22:6-7
“As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, ‘Father?’ ‘Yes, my son?’ Abraham replied. ‘The fire and wood are here,’ Isaac said, ‘but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’”
Even Isaac knew something was different about this burnt sacrifice: But Abraham does not seem to tell him he is the burnt offering, instead he tells him God would provide a lamb at the top of the mountain for the burn sacrifice: strongly hinting in his hope that God was not actually going to go through with this human sacrifice, but was doing it for some other reason.
Genesis 22:8
“Abraham answered, ‘God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’”
But when they got to the top of the mountain there was no lamb nor God telling Abraham to get a lamb for an animal sacrifice somewhere; so, Abraham made the alter, arranged the wood, and finally told his son he was going to be the sacrifice:
Genesis 22:9
“…When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it.”
Isaac most likely was shocked and horrified yet it seems he also obeyed his father and God and willingly let his father tied him up on the wood like an animal sacrifice:
Genesis 22:9
“…He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.”
And then he reached for the knife to stab the throat of his son, killing him as a human sacrifice: most likely the greatest sacrifice Abraham had ever sacrificed to God:
Genesis 22:10
“...Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.”
But just as he was about to stab his son in the throat he heard a voice of an angel from the sky calling his name:
Genesis 22:11
“But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ ”
He immediately answered back.
Genesis 22:11
“‘Here I am,’ he replied.”
He then tells him to stop sacrificing his son to God:
Abraham was not going to lose his son and there was not going to be a human sacrifice after all. He even tells why God commanded him to kill his own son as a human sacrifice that finally explains why he ordered this sacrifice:
Genesis 22:12
“‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’”
God did not change his mind on human sacrifices, nor did he really want Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son God gave to him to have descendants to become his chosen people:
Rather this whole command was nothing more than a test to see if Abraham would actually obey such a crazy and shocking command contradicting everything, he knew was right and going to happen in his life and beyond.
He passed the test because he did it and went through with it anyway just because God told him to; he was willing to sacrifice the most precious and sacred thing he ever had or wanted because God asked for it; and therefore God now knew Abraham was fully surrendered to obeying him and was truly willing to do and giving up everything he was asked to in order to obey God’s commands and serve his wishes.
For passing his test God did provide a more appropriate alternative sacrifice to his son: Abraham looked in the thickets ahead of him growing on the mountain and saw a ram stuck in the thicket:
Genesis 22:13
“Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns.”
This was the sacrifice God really approved of: a burnt animal sacrifice he desired in place of his son, after he passed his test for him. So, he untied his son and captured the ram tied it up instead and stabbed it in the throat and burnt it as an appropriate burnt offering:
Genesis 22:13
“He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.”
Why this was the only time God had ever asked for a personal human sacrifice; the symbolism of sacrifice is far more important:
This sacrifice of his only son was really representing total submission to God in everything: in a sense this is why all sacrifices were important and sacred to God: they symbolized the human's willingness to submit to God everything they had: thus, how much they were willing to obey him and thus loved him.
Because Abraham was willing to give up the most precious thing in his life to God in sacrifice, God was officially going to make his covenant with Abrham and his descendants permanent: before this time, though the covenant was pretty much guaranteed to take place, it possibly could have been revoked based on if Abraham failed or passed this particular test or even the behavior of his son Isaac and his descendants (though this is not directly stated). But after Abraham passed this test God was going to make this covenant official regardless of what any of his descendants did: he was swearing by himself that everything that he had said would absolutely happen no matter what:
Genesis 22:15-18
“The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, ‘‘I swear by myself,’ declares the Lord, ‘that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.’’”
Two sacrifices made two everlasting covenants:
showing how important and vital sacrifices were to God.
Abraham’s God-obeying descendants continue to make sacrifices to God
Likewise, Abraham’s son Isaac (an Abrahamite: a descendant of Abraham) as an obedient follower of God raised by Abraham also sacrificed to God:
Genesis 26:24-25
“…the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.’ Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord.”
His son Israel, as an obedient Abrahamite like his grandfather, also sacrificed to God:
He also was the first recorded human to not just sacrifice animals and produce but also drink and oil as an offering poured on an alter instead of burned:
Genesis 26:14
“Jacob set up a stone pillar at the place where God had talked with him, and he poured out a drink offering on it; he also poured oil on it.”
Either God revealed to Abraham, Isaac or even Jacob that they can now pour out drink and oil offerings on alters to him from now or these offerings were always acceptable offerings to God since he introduced sacrifices and offerings but was just not mentioned.
So, the law of sacrificing and offering was introduced and the cornerstone of the Adamic covenant and pretty much all covenants God had made so far; And even when almost all Noahites pretty much rebelled against God and began to forget his Noahic covenant by worshiping false man-made Gods, many of these now Noahic nations/peoples still understood the law of sacrifice was very important to honor a god (they just sacrificed to their false gods now and added human sacrifice: which was not an acceptable sacrifice because it was murder).
So, the law of sacrifice was well known and commanded by the time God made the Old Covenant.
And the cornerstone of all covenants and even a right relationship with God; because the sacrifices symbolized a greater willingness to obey God’s will (along with the possible meaning an appropriate covering/punishment for sin) and more important symbolize a human’s love for him.
(Back to the laws before the Old Covenant)
Sources:
[1]
[A] Merriam-Webster “Offering”
Website: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/offering
[B] Cambridge Dictionary “Offering”
Website: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/offering
[2]
Strong’s Greek: 4503. Minchah (min-khaw') -- a gift, tribute, offering, Biblehub.
Website:
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/4503.htm
[3]
[A] Merriam-Webster “Sacrifice”
Website: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacrifice
[B] Dictionary.com “Sacrifice”
Website: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sacrifice
[4]
Wikipedia "Sacrifice"
Website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice
[5]
Note:
God is not recorded saying what is specifically in the brackets, but since Abram is recorded a verse later as dividing the animal sacrifices in half (except for the birds):
Genesis 15:10
“Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.”
God must have commanded him to do this, though it is not directly recorded.