Leviticus 17:1-3

THE PLACE OF SLAYING DOMESTIC ANIMALS FOR FOOD, Leviticus 17:1-6.

3. In the camp In addition to the ceremonial, there were doubtless sanitary grounds for the requirement that all slaughter in the camp be in one place, where there was doubtless some way of disposing of the blood without endangering the public health. See Introduction, (6.) The private slaughter of domestic animals was doubtless forbidden as a safeguard against the propensity to idol offerings, which the people brought with them out of Egypt. The suggestion has weight, that since the herds were scanty, the requirement to bring animals for slaughter to the tabernacle was also designed to act as a check against too great a reduction of their number. Only the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half of Manasseh seem to have had what might be called large herds. Numbers 32:0. There can be little doubt, that during the forty years in the wilderness oxen and sheep were rarely used as food, whence it was flesh that Israel so greatly lusted after.

Out of the camp The inconvenience of this requirement, when Israel was widely scattered in the wilderness for pasturage, is greatly mitigated by the fact that they were miraculously fed with manna. Their disgust for this, and clamour for animal food, (Numbers 11:6,) indicates that they rarely slew any animal of their flocks for food. But when the manna had ceased, and the tabernacle was fixed in one place, this prohibition was repealed in advance by Moses, (Deuteronomy 12:13-15,) so far as animals intended for food are concerned, and the people were permitted to kill and eat in all their gates.