Verse 19
19. House of the Lord thy God Observe that here, in this oldest Sinaitic legislation, one common sanctuary is contemplated for all the people .
Seethe a kid in his mother’s milk Compare chap . 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21. The boiling of a young kid in the milk of its own mother would seem an outrage upon the laws of nature, in violating the sacred relationship of parent and offspring. Some writers have, not without reason, supposed that a contemporary superstitious practice of this kind existed among the heathen, and led to the enactment of this law. Thomson says that the Arabs are nowgiven to the practice of stewing a young kid in milk, mixed with onions and hot spices, and they call it “kid in his mother’s milk.” He observes, as the opinion of the Jews, “that it is unnatural and barbarous to cook a poor kid in that from which it derives its life. Many of the Mosaic precepts are evidently designed to cultivate gentle and humane feelings; but the ‘kid in his mother’s milk’ is a gross, unwholesome dish, calculated also to kindle up animal and ferocious passions.” The Land and the Book, vol. i, p. 135.
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