Deuteronomy 17:1 Meaning You Shall Not Sacrifice to Yahweh

The people are camped east of the river, close enough to look across at a land they have not walked in yet, and the old man speaking to them is setting out how life will run once they cross. Between rules about judges and kings comes a small one about animals: when you bring an ox or a sheep to the altar, do not bring the lame one, the scarred one, the one already half gone. Bring the sound one. The altar is a mirror. Every thing that exists stands there to show something of the One who gave it being, and when you set a creature in front of Him you are holding up a mirror for Him to look into. A cracked mirror does no harm to the face. It only tells a lie about it, and beauty asks to be met with beauty.

Then look at what your hands are really doing. The animal was never yours. The grass it ate, the breath inside it, the rope you lead it by, all of it on loan from the Real, so the giving is only a returning. Holding back the good one and handing over the broken one is a quiet claim to own something. Whoever knows himself knows his Lord, and this is a cheap and quick way to learn what you think you are.

And the word for that flawed gift is not careless or late. It is detestable, the same weight given to idols. Not because God is injured by a limping sheep, but because an idol is any false picture of Him, and here the false picture is made of flesh and laid on His own table.