The very earliest records of Babylon and Assyria, indicate the outreaching of man for an inter-union with God, or with the gods, by substitute blood, and the confident inter-communion of man with God, or with the gods, on the strength of this inter-union by blood. There is an Akkadian poem which clearly “goes back to pre-Semitic times,” with its later Assyrian translation, concerning the sacrifice to the gods, of a first-born son.[332] It says distinctly: “His offspring for his life he gave.” Here is obviously the idea of vicarious substitution, of life for life, of the blood of the son for the blood of the father, but this substitution does not necessarily involve the idea of an _expiatory_ offering for sin; even though it does include the idea of _propitiation_. Abraham’s surrender of his first-born son to God was in proof of his loving trust, not of his sense of a penalty due for sin. Jephthah’s surrender of his daughter was on a vow of devotedness, not as an exhibit of remorse, or of penitence, for unexpiated guilt. In each instance, the outpouring of substitute blood was in evidence of a desire to be in new covenant oneness with God. Thus Queen Manenko and Dr. Livingstone made a covenant of blood vicariously, by the substitution of her husband on the one part, and of an attendant of Livingstone, on the other part.[333] So, also the Akkadian king may have sought a covenant union with his god--from whom sin had separated him--by the substitute blood of his first-born and best loved son. Certain it is, that the early kings of Babylon and Assyria were accustomed to make their grateful offerings to the gods, and to share those offerings with the gods, by way of inter-communion with the gods, apart from any sense of sin and of its merited punishment which they may have felt.[334] Indeed, it is claimed, with a show of reason, that the very word (_surqinu_) which was used for “altar” in the Assyrian, was primarily the word for “table”; that, in fact, what was later known as the “altar” to the gods, was originally the table of communion between the gods and their worshipers.[335] There seems to be a reference to this idea in the interchanged use of the words “altar” and “table” by the Prophet Malachi: “And ye say, Wherein have ye despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine _altar_? And ye say, Wherein have ye polluted thee? In that ye say, The _table_ of the Lord is contemptible.”[336] So again, in Isaiah 65 : 11: “But ye that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a _table_ for Fortune, and that fill up mingled wine unto Destiny; I will destine you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter.”