When Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, the eunuch is reading Isaiah 53:7-8 (all quotations NRSV-UE):
Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.The word for 'slaughter' here is sphage; it can be translated as 'slaughter' or 'killing' in general, but it is often used in Greek for sacrificial killing, especially in certain kinds of special sacrifices. The standard word for high sacrifice, i.e., formal sacrifice to Olympian gods, or in the Bible to God, is thysia, and has overtones of communion with the divine, since the sacrifice would be shared with the offerer in a sacrificial feast. These sacrifices were for public festivals or important family occasions, like the birth of a child or a wedding. But there were lots of other sacrifices that had more specialized functions -- for instance, a fairly common sacrifice that would be called a sphage would be a sacrifice before battle.
We have a similar use of sphage in Romans 8:36, this time quoting Psalm 44:22:
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”Again, while it could just mean 'slaughter', it almost certainly is intended at least to suggest sacrifice.
The third passage in the New Testament that uses sphage is James 5:5, in James's condemnation of the rich:
You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.(There is probably an allusion here to Jeremiah 12:1-3.) While 'slaughter' works here, the intended image again seems to be specifically of animals being fattened (a perhaps better translation than 'nourished') for sacrifice. The point is ironic, of course: with all of their ill-gotten wealth, they are in fact just fattening themselves up for imminent sacrifice.
The verb sphazo is also found in the New Testament; interestingly, it seems only to be in the Johannine literature. In one case, 1 John 3:12, it possibly just means 'kill', but one wonders whether there might be a hint of allusion to the sacrificial meaning mixed in with the more general meaning. Other uses are in Revelation; for instance, Revelation 5:6, 5:9-10, and 5:12:
Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
They sing a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to break its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.”
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”These are all clearly sacrificial, as is the similar usage in Revelation 13:8. Revelation 6:4 is probably just general slaughter (but perhaps the rider on the red horse in taking away the peace of the earth makes men sacrifice each other, in at least a figurative sense), but 6:9 likely implies not just slaughter but also that martyrdom is a kind of sacrifice:
When he broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?”
The same use of the term for martyrdom is found in Revelation 18:24.
Revelation 13:3 is a peculiar one. It's about the Beast, and says literally something like, "And one of its heads in the manner of having been killed (esphagmenen) to death, and its death blow was relieved, and all the land wondered at the back of the Beast." In immediate context it makes sense to read the verb as suggesting just killing or slaying in general. Yet the emphatic phrase, 'killed to death' weirdly combined with the weakening hos (like, as, in the manner of), the mentions of worship in the broader context, and the fact that in 13:8 we get the same word (esphagmenou) attached to the Lamb, where it clearly indicates sacrifice, makes me wonder if we should perhaps take the meaning to be that one of the heads seemed to have been sacrificed, which contrasts with the Lamb, who was really sacrificed. The worshipped-on-earth, ten-horned, seven-headed, blasphemously named Beast is to the Dragon as the worshipped-in-heaven, seven-horned, seven-eyed, many-named Lamb is to God; the Beast is therefore perhaps implied to be the pseudo-sacrifice through which the Dragon is worshipped.
