“And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. And Moses said, It is not meet so to do;
- for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God:
- lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us?” (Exodus 8:25-26)
In the English Bible the word abominable / abomination is translated as “loathesome” or “detestable”. But while that may describe God’s reaction, is doesn’t provide a definition of the item.
One scholarly source interprets the abomination as the act of sacrificing an animal that was sacred to Egyptians. However, the biblical text states that the abomination is the lamb itself.
Clearly there is a far more significant meaning that Pharaoh and Moses, raised in the royal household, understood and accepted – no disrespect intended, none taken, just a fact.
The abomination of the Egyptians was Khnum, one of the principal and oldest gods of Egypt (fourth from the left in the image below.), a combination sheep and human.

The Hebrews’ sheep was also, in the eyes of the Egyptians, a sacred being combined with a human.
And so it was.
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)
The difference between the two sheep sacrifices is that the Hebrews’ sheep only temporarily represented the “seed of the woman” promised to permanently replace the animals slaughtered onto which God had transferred the death sentence “in the day” the Adams ate the fruit.
A biblical definition of abominable / abomination is linked to corrupt, the opposite of good.
“The fool / wickedly ignorant, refusing to accept the truth hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” (Psalm 14:1)
Continue reading “84) Abominations”