God commands child sacrifice (not Isaac story)

[Fitzwilly]

(8:18 pm. PST) edit: This is not about the story of the sacrifice of Isaac!

You almost never hear this but God in the OT actually explicitly commanded child sacrifice and then later changed his mind.

The command from God for child sacrifice. Exodus 22:29-30,

29 "You shall not delay to offer from the fulness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. "The first-born of your sons you shall give to me. 30 You shall do likewise with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its dam; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.

God later changed his mind. Ezekiel 20:25-26

25 Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; 26 and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD.

I remember reading these passages in an Old Testament class back in Bible College. I was perplexed, then horrified as an 18yr old kid thinking that I could not believe in a never-changing, consistent god. As a PK (preacher's kid) growing up in the Christian faith, I was very aware of what it says in the Book of Malachi 3:6: "I am the Lord, and I do not change".

The Professor was a bit liberal with Biblical interpretation and agreed, god did change. So what does this really say about the Good Book? There's really no other way to interpret this. The Bible contradicts itself - over and over again. And I find it so amazing that highly intelligent people give these contradictions a pass, all in the name of "God's Mysterious Ways".