“Sacrifice is the essential act of external worship. It is a prayer which is acted, a symbolic action which expresses both the interior feelings of the person offering it, and God’s response to this prayer. It is rather like tha symbolic actions of the prophets. By sacrificial rites, the gift made the God is accepted, union with God is achieved and th eguilt of the man is taken away. But these effects are not achieved by magic, it is essential that the external action should express the trus inner feelings of man, and that it should be favourably received by God.”
Roland De Vaux – Ancient Israel, P451