Leviticus 17:1-16

Rule of Sacrifice. Prohibition against eating Blood

1-9. The first part of this Law prescribes that all oxen, sheep, and goats, slaughtered for food, must first be presented to Jehovah at the sanctuary. This seems to presuppose a time when the Israelites used but little flesh food, and were not widely scattered, which must have been either during the wanderings in the desert, or immediately after the return from exile, when there was only a small community in the vicinity of Jerusalem. This raises the question of the date of the composition of the Law of Holiness, and scholars are still divided upon it. The law is repealed in Deuteronomy 12:15, where it is implied that different conditions of life prevail.

7. The object of this enactment was to counteract the tendency to offer sacrifice to those demons of the wilderness which were worshipped in the form of he-goats, for so the RV renders the word here translated devils: see note on Azazel in Leviticus 16:8. Gone a whoring] see on Exodus 34:10.

10-16. Prohibition against eating blood or fallen carcases. The law against eating blood agrees with natural instincts and is here connected with a religious idea: see on Leviticus 3:3.

15. The law against eating what dies of itself is a corollary of the former. The flesh of such an animal cannot be thoroughly drained of blood: cp. Exodus 22:31; Deuteronomy 14:21. Bear his iniquity] bear the penalty of his transgression.