HOLINESS IN EATING
Lev 17:1-16
WITH this chapter begins another subdivision of the law. Hitherto
we have had before us only sacrificial worship and matters of merely
ceremonial law. The law of holy living contained in the following
chapters (17-22), on the other hand, has to do for the most part
with matters rather ethical than ceremonial, and consists chiefly of
precepts designed to regulate morally the ordinary engagements and
relationships of everyday life. The fundamental thought of the four
chapters is that which is expressed, e.g., in Lev 18:3 : Israel,
redeemed by Jehovah, is called to be a holy people; and this
holiness is to be manifested in a total separation from the ways of
the heathen. This principle is enforced by various specific commands
and prohibitions, which naturally have particular regard to the
special conditions under which Israel was placed, as a holy nation
consecrated to Jehovah, the one, true God, but living in the midst
of nations of idolaters.
The whole of chapter 17, with the exception of Lev 16:8-9, has to do
with the application of this law of holy living to the use even of
lawful food. At first thought, the injunctions of the chapter might
seem to belong rather to ceremonial than to moral law; but closer
observation will show that all the injunctions here given have
direct reference to the avoidance of idolatry, especially as
connected with the preparation and use of food.
It was not enough that the true Israelite should abstain from food
prohibited by God, as in chapter 12; he must also use that which was
permitted in a way well pleasing to God, carefully shunning even the
appearance of any complicity with surrounding idolatry, or
fellowship with the heathen in their unholy fashions and customs.
Even so for the Christian: it is not enough that he abstain from
what is expressly forbidden; even in his use of lawful food, he must
so use it that it shall be to him a means of grace, in helping him
to maintain an uninterrupted walk with God.
In Lev 17:1-7 is given the law to regulate the use of such clean
animals for food as could be offered to God in sacrifice; in Lev
17:10-16, of such as, although permitted for food, were not allowed
for sacrifice.
The directions regarding the first class may be summed up in this:
all such animals were to be treated as peace offerings. No private
person in Israel was to slaughter any such animal anywhere in the
camp or out of it, except at the door of the tent of meeting.
Thither they were to be brought "unto the priest," and offered for
peace offerings (Lev 17:5); the blood must be sprinkled on the altar
of burnt offering; the fat parts burnt "for a sweet savour unto the
Lord" (Lev 17:6); and then only the priest having first taken his
appointed portions, the remainder might now be eaten by the
Israelite, as given back to him by God, in peaceful fellowship with
Him.
The law could not have been burdensome, as some might hastily
imagine. Even when obtainable, meat was probably not used as food by
them so freely as with us; and in the wilderness the lack of flesh,
it will be remembered, was so great as to have occasioned at one
time a rebellion among the people, who fretfully complained: {Num
11:4} "Who shall give us flesh to eat?"
Even the uncritical reader must be able to see how manifest is the
Mosaic date of this part of Leviticus. The terms of this law suppose
a camp life; indeed, the camp is explicitly named (Lev 17:3). That
which was enjoined was quite practicable under the conditions of
life in the wilderness, when, at the best, flesh was scarce, and the
people dwelt compactly together; but would have been utterly
inapplicable and impracticable at a later date, after they were
settled throughout the land of Canaan, when to have slaughtered all
beasts used for food at the central sanctuary would have been
impossible. Hence we find that, as we should expect, the modified
law of Deuteronomy, {Deu 12:15-16; Deu 12:20-24} assuming the
previous existence of this earlier law, explicitly repeals it. To
suppose that forgers of a later day, as, for instance, of the time
of Josiah, or after the Babylonian exile, should have needlessly
invented a law of this kind, is a hypothesis which is rightly
characterised by Dillmann as "simply absurd."
This regulation for the wilderness days is said (Lev 17:5, Lev 17:7)
to have been made "to the end that the children of Israel may bring
their sacrifices, which they sacrifice in the open field unto the
Lord, and sacrifice them for sacrifices of peace offerings unto the
Lord And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the
he-goats, after whom they go a whoring,"
There can be no doubt that in the last sentence, "he-goats," as in
the Revised Version, instead of "devils," as in the Authorised, is
the right rendering. The worship referred to was still in existence
in the days of the monarchy; for it is included in the charges
against "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin," {2Ch
11:15} that "he appointed him priests; for the he-goats, and for the
calves which he had made." Nor can here we agree with Dillmann that
in this worship of he-goats here referred to, there is "no occasion
to think of the goat worship of Egypt." For inasmuch as we know that
the worship of the sacred bull and that of the he-goat prevailed in
Egypt in those days, and inasmuch as in Eze 20:6-7; Eze 20:15-18,
repeated reference is made to Israel’s having worshipped "the idols
of Egypt," one can hardly avoid combining these two facts, and thus
connecting the goat worship to which allusion is here made, with
that which prevailed at Mendes, in Lower Egypt. This cult at that
place was accompanied with nameless revolting rites, such as give
special significance to the description of this worship (Lev 17:7)
as "a whoring" after the goats; and abundantly explain and justify
the severity of the penalty attached to the violation of this law
(Lev 17:4) in cutting off the offender from this people; all the
more when we observe the fearful persistency of this horrible goat
worship in Israel, breaking out anew, as just remarked, some five
hundred years later, in the reign of Jeroboam.
The words imply that the ordinary slaughter of animals for food was
often connected with some idolatrous ceremony related to this goat
worship. What precisely it may have been, we know not; but of such
customs, connecting the preparation of the daily food with idolatry,
we have abundant illustration in the usages of the ancient Persians,
the Hindoos, and the heathen Arabs of the days before Mohammed. The
law was thus intended to cut out this everyday idolatry by the root.
With these "field devils," as Luther renders the word, the holy
people of the Lord were to have nothing to do.
Very naturally, the requirement to present all slaughtered animals
as peace offerings to Jehovah gives occasion to turn aside for a
little from the matter of food, which is the chief subject of the
chapter, in order to extend this principle beyond animals
slaughtered for food, and insist particularly that all burnt
offerings and sacrifices of every kind should be sacrificed at the
door of the tent of meeting, and nowhere else. This law, we are told
(Lev 17:8), was to be applied, not only to the Israelites
themselves, but also to "strangers" among them; such as, e.g., were
the Gibeonites. No idolatry, nor anything likely to be associated
with it, was to be tolerated from anyone in the holy camp.
The principle which underlies this stringent law, as also the reason
which is given for it, is of constant application in modern life.
There was nothing wrong in itself in slaying an animal in one place
more than another. It was abstractly possible-as, likely enough,
many an Israelite may have said to himself-that a man could just as
really "eat unto the Lord" if he slaughtered and ate his animal in
the field, as anywhere else. Nevertheless this was forbidden under
the heaviest penalties. It teaches us that he who will be holy must
not only abstain from that which is in itself always wrong, but must
carefully keep himself from doing even lawful or necessary things in
such a way, or under such associations and circumstances, as may
outwardly compromise his Christian standing, or which may be proved
by experience to have an almost unavoidable tendency toward sin. The
laxity in such matters which prevails in the so-called "Christian
world" argues little for the tone of spiritual life in our day in
those who indulge in it, or allow it, or apologise for it. It may be
true enough, in a sense, that as many say, there is no harm in this
or that. Perhaps not; but what if experience have shown that, though
in itself not sinful, a certain association or amusement almost
always tends to worldliness, which is a form of idolatry? Or-to use
the apostle’s illustration-what if one be seen, though with no
intention of wrong, "sitting at meat in an idol’s temple," and he
whose conscience is weak be thereby emboldened to do what to him is
sin? There is only one safe principle, now as in the days of Moses:
everything must be brought "before the Lord"; used as from Him and
for Him, and therefore used under such limitations and restrictions
as His wise and holy law imposes. Only so shall we be safe; only so
abide in living fellowship with God.
Very beautiful and instructive, again, was the direction that the
Israelite, in the cases specified, should make his daily food a
peace offering. This involved a dedication of the daily food to the
Lord; and in his receiving it back again then from the hand of God,
the truth was visibly represented that our daily food is from God;
while also, in the sacrificial acts which preceded the eating, the
Israelite was continually reminded that it was upon the ground of an
accepted atonement that even these everyday mercies were received.
Such also should be, in spirit, the often neglected prayer before
each of our daily meals. It should be ever offered with the
remembrance of the precious blood which has purchased for us even
the most common mercies; and should thus sincerely recognise what,
in the confusing complexity of the second causes through which we
receive our daily food, we so easily forget: that the Lord’s prayer
is not a mere form of words when we say, "Give us this day our daily
bread"; but that working behind, and in, and with, all these second
causes, is the kindly Providence of God, who, opening His hand,
supplies the want of every living thing.
And so, eating in grateful, loving fellowship with our Heavenly
Father that which His bounty gives us, to His glory, every meal
shall become, as it were, a sacramental remembrance of the Lord. We
may have wondered at what we have read of the world wide custom of
the Mohammedan, who, whenever the knife of slaughter is lifted
against a beast for food, utters his "Bism allah," "In the name of
the most merciful God"; and not otherwise will regard his food as
being made halal, or "lawful"; and, no doubt, in all this, as in
many a Christian’s prayer, there may often be little heart. But the
thought in this ceremony is even this of Leviticus, and we do well
to make it our own, eating even our daily food "in the name of the
most merciful God," and with uplifting of the heart in thankful
worship toward Him.
But there were many beasts which, although they might not be offered
to the Lord in sacrifice, were yet "clean," and permitted to the
Israelites as food. Such, in particular, were clean animals that are
taken in the hunt or chase. In Lev 17:10-16 the law is given for the
use of these. It is prefaced by a very full and explicit prohibition
of the eating of blood; for while, as regards the animals to be
offered to the Lord, provision was made with respect to the blood,
that it was to be sprinkled around the altar, there was the danger
that in other cases, where this was not permissible, the blood might
be used for food. Hence the prohibition against eating "any manner
of blood," on a twofold ground: first (Lev 17:11, Lev 17:14), that
the life of the flesh is the blood; and second (Lev 17:11), that,
for this reason, God had chosen the blood to be the symbol of life
substituted for the life of the guilty in atoning sacrifice: "I have
given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls."
Hence, in order that this relation of the blood to the forgiveness
of sins might be constantly kept before the mind, it was ordained
that never should the Israelite eat of flesh except the blood should
first have been carefully drained out. And it was to be treated with
reverence, as having thus a certain sanctity; when the beast was
taken in hunting, the Israelite must (Lev 17:13) "pour out the blood
thereof, and cover it with dust";-an act by which the blood, the
life, was symbolically returned to Him who in the beginning said,
{Gen 1:24} "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its
kind." And because, in the case of "that which dieth of itself," or
is "torn of beasts," the blood would not be thus carefully drained
off, all such animals (Lev 17:15) are prohibited as food.
It is profoundly instructive to observe that here, again, we come
upon declarations and a command, the deep truth and fitness of which
is only becoming clear now after three thousand years. For, as the
result of our modern discoveries with regard to the constitution of
the blood, and the exact nature of its functions, we in this day are
able to say that it is not far from a scientific statement of the
facts, when we read (Lev 17:14), "As to the life of all flesh, the
blood thereof is all one with the life thereof." For it is in just
this respect that the blood is most distinct from all other parts of
the body; that, whereas it conveys and mediates nourishment to all,
it is itself nourished by none; but by its myriad cells brought
immediately in contact with the digested food, directly and
immediately assimilates it to itself. We are compelled to say that
as regards the physical life of man-which alone is signified by the
original term here-it is certainly true of the blood, as of no other
part of the organism, that "the life of all flesh is the blood
thereof."
And while it is true that, according to the text, a spiritual and
moral reason is given for the prohibition of the use of blood as
food, yet it is well worth noting that, as has been already remarked
in another connection, the prohibition, as we are now beginning to
see, had also a hygienic reason. For Dr. de Mussy, in his paper
before the French Academy of Medicine already referred to, calls
attention to the fact that, not only did the Mosaic laws exclude
from the Hebrew dietary animals "particularly liable to parasites";
but also that "it is in the blood," so rigidly prohibited by Moses
as food, "that the germs or spores of infections disease circulate."
Surely no one need fear, with some expositors, lest this recognition
of a sanitary intent in these laws shall hinder the recognition of
their moral and spiritual purport, which in this chapter is so
expressly taught. Rather should this cause us the more to wonder and
admire the unity which thus appears between the demands and
necessities of the physical and the moral and spiritual life; and,
in the discovery of the marvellous adaptation of these ancient laws
to the needs of both, to find a new confirmation of our faith in God
and in His revealed Word. For thus do they appear to be laws so far
beyond the wisdom of that time, and so surely beneficent in their
working, that in view of this it should be easy to believe that it
must indeed have been the Lord God, the Maker and Preserver of all
flesh, who spake all these laws unto His servant Moses.
The moral and spiritual purpose of this law concerning the use of
blood was apparently twofold. In the first place, it was intended to
educate the people to a reverence for life, and purify them from
that tendency to bloodthirstiness which has so often distinguished
heathen nations, and especially those with whom Israel was to be
brought in closest contact. But secondly, and chiefly, it was
intended, as in the former part of the chapter, everywhere and
always to keep before the mind the sacredness of the blood as being
the appointed means for the expiation of sin; given by God upon the
altar to make atonement for the soul of the sinner, "by reason of
the life" or soul with which it stood in such immediate relation.
Not only were they therefore to abstain from the blood of such
animals as could be offered on the altar, but even from that of
those which could not be offered. Thus the blood was to remind them,
every time that they ate flesh, of the very solemn truth that
without shedding of blood there was no remission of sin. The
Israelite must never forget this; even in the heat and excitement of
the chase, he must pause and carefully drain the blood from the
creature he had slain, and reverently cover it with dust; -a
symbolic act which should ever put him in mind of the Divine
ordinance that the blood, the life, of a guiltless victim must be
given, in order to the forgiveness of sin.
A lesson lies here for us regarding the sacredness of all that is
associated with sacred things. All that is connected with God, and
with His worship, especially all that is connected with His
revelation of Himself for our salvation, is to be treated with the
most profound reverence. Even though the blood of the deer killed in
the chase could not be used in sacrifice, yet, because it was blood,
was in its essential nature like unto that which was so used,
therefore it must be treated with a certain respect, and be always
covered with earth. It is the fashion of our age-and one which is
increasing in an alarming degree-to speak lightly of things which
are closely connected with the revelation and worship of the holy
God. Against everything of this kind the spirit of this law warns
us. Nothing which is associated in any way with what is sacred is to
be spoken of or treated irreverently, lest we thus come to think
lightly of the sacred things themselves. This irreverent treatment
of holy things is a crying evil in many parts of the
English-speaking world, as also in continental Christendom. We need
to beware of it. After irreverence, too often, by no obscure law,
comes open denial of the Holy One and of His Holy Son, our Lord and
Saviour. The blood of Christ, which represented that holy life which
was given on the cross for our sins, is holy-an infinitely holy
thing! And what is God’s estimate of its sanctity we may perhaps
learn-looking through the symbol to that which was symbolised-from
this law; which required that all blood, because outwardly
resembling the holy blood of sacrifice, and, like it, the seat and
vehicle of life, should be treated with most careful reverence. And
it is safe to say that just those most need the lesson taught by
this command who find it the hardest to appreciate it, and to whom
its injunctions still seem regulations puerile and unworthy,
according to their fancy, of the dignity and majesty of God.
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