From the perspective of the Tanakh, the central problem with this passage is not moral seriousness or the call to self-discipline, but the theological assumption behind it.
In the Tanakh, the God of Israel establishes an eternal, sufficient, and just covenant with Israel. This covenant is not provisional, broken, or awaiting a future payment.
“The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to do all the words of this Torah.” (Deuteronomy)
There is no concept in the Tanakh that sin creates a metaphysical debt requiring the death of a divine or semi-divine intermediary. Repentance (teshuvah), prayer, restitution, and obedience are repeatedly presented as fully effective means of reconciliation with God.
God explicitly rejects the idea of substitutionary human sacrifice:
Each person bears responsibility for their own sin (Ezekiel 18)
God does not punish one soul for another’s guilt
Human sacrifice is condemned as an abomination, never a remedy
The covenant is described as:
Eternal (Genesis, Exodus)
Perfect and reviving the soul (Psalms)
Near, accessible, and livable (Deuteronomy 30)
If the covenant is eternal and perfect, then it does not require repair. If God forgives through repentance, then there is no unpaid debt. If God is just, then punishing an innocent party violates His own standards.
The idea that God would require the suffering or death of a “son” to satisfy justice introduces concepts foreign to the Tanakh:
Divine sonship in a literal sense
Vicarious atonement through death
Salvation through belief in a person rather than return to Torah
Even the suffering servant passages (Isaiah 53) are understood within the Tanakh itself as referring to Israel, a nation that suffers yet remains faithful—not a future divine sacrifice.
From a Tanakh view, the problem is not that people should deny selfishness or live humbly—those values are already present in Torah ethics. The problem is the claim that God changed the mechanism of forgiveness, replacing repentance with belief in a sacrificial figure.
A God who provides an eternal covenant does not later declare it insufficient. A God who forgives freely does not demand blood to forgive. A God who forbids human sacrifice does not require it for redemption.
Thus, the question answers itself: There is no non-existent debt that needs paying—because God already provided a complete path of forgiveness, justice, and life within the covenant He declared eternal.
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