from the beginning as a universal recognition of a need to put oneself in a right relationship with God. Sacrifice was inextricably bound up in prayer and supplication in order to obtain health, prosperity and wellbeing. So it should not be assumed that God began to deal with mankind in this way with Moses or even when He called Abraham. The history of sacrifice predated the patriarchs. It should not come as a surprise, then, that Israel’s way of expressing the nation’s relationship with God was