One of the traditional Jewish ritual prohibitions, known both in Yahwistic and in Jewish religious practice, is the prohibition against eating meat with blood...
One of the traditional Jewish ritual prohibitions, known both in Yahwistic and in Jewish religious practice, is the prohibition against eating meat with blood. One might ask why blood should be forbidden when the animal has already been killed and is intended for food. In any case, that blood will end up on the ground; the slaughtered animal cannot be brought back to life. The simplest answer would be to point out that human beings were allowed to eat animal flesh after the fall, when the covenant with Noah was made.
Blood poured out on the ground serves as a reminder that this is something extraordinary, something that under normal circumstances, had the fall not happened, should not have existed at all. There is also a deeper explanation. It concerns blood as the symbol and vessel of life.
According to the biblical understanding, the "soul," or life, of both an animal and fallen humanity is in the blood and is bound precisely to the blood. Blood is used during sacrifice for the sanctification of a person, together with the sacrificial meat, of course; but a sacrificial meal does not take place at every sacrifice, while sprinkling with blood always does.
A sacrifice can be offered only at the Tabernacle; any other sacrifice is considered pagan. This is understandable: God marked the place of His presence where He chose to mark it, and it is not for human beings to establish meeting places with Him. Yet people need to eat everywhere, not only where the Tabernacle is, and God does not forbid a person to eat meat wherever he has to live.
Blood is another matter: it is God's, whether the blood in question is an animal's or a human being's. It is not for nourishment; it is for sanctification, and only for sanctification. To consume it as food in the same way as meat is an attack on what is holy, on what belongs and must belong only to God. That is why the Book of Leviticus commands that blood be poured out on the ground: the earth is God's, and what falls there returns to God. So too must every life return to Him, life whose symbol and vessel in the Bible is blood.
17 Two prohibitions,
17:3 That killeth - Not for common use, for such beasts might be killed by any person or in any place but for sacrifice. In the camp, or out of the camp - That is, anywhere.
17:4 The tabernacle - This was appointed in opposition to the Heathens, who sacrificed in all places; to cut off occasions of idolatry; to prevent the people's usurpation of the priest's office, and to signify that God would accept of no sacrifices but through Christ and in the Church; (of both which the tabernacle was a type.) But though men were tied to this law, God was free to dispense with his own law, which he did sometimes to the prophets, as Lev 7:9, Lev 11:15. He hath shed blood - He shall be punished as a murderer. The reason is, because he shed that blood, which, though not man's blood, yet was precious, being sacred and appropriated to God, and typically the price by which men's lives were ransomed.
17:5 They offer - The Israelites, before the building of the tabernacle, did so, from which they are now restrained. Peace - offerings - He nameth not these exclusively from others, as appears from the reason ofthe law, and from Lev 17:8-9, but because in these the temptation was more common in regard of their frequency, and more powerful, because part of these belonged to the offerer, and the pretence was more plausible, because their sanctity was of a lower degree than others, these being only called holy, and allowed in part to the people, whereas the others are called most holy, and were wholly appropriated either to God, or to the priests.
17:6 Upon the altar - This verse contains a reason of the foregoing law, because of God's propriety in the blood and fat, wherewith also God was well pleased, and the people reconciled. And these two parts only are mentioned, as the most eminent, and peculiar, though other parts also were reserved for God.
17:7 Unto devils - So they did, not directly or intentionally, but by construction and consequence, because the devil is the author of idolatry, and is eminently served, and honoured by it. And as the Egyptians were notorious for their idolatry, so the Israelites were infected with their leaven, Jos 24:14, Eze 20:7, Eze 23:2-3. A whoring - Idolatry, especially in God's people, is commonly called whoredom, because it is a violation of that covenant by which they were peculiarly betrothed or married to God.
17:10 I will set my face - I will be an enemy to him, and execute vengeance upon him immediately; because such persons probably would do this in private, so that the magistrate could not know nor punish it. Write that man undone, for ever undone, against whom God sets his face.
17:11 Is in the blood - Depends upon the blood, is preserved and nourished by it. The blood maketh atonement - Typically, and in respect of the blood of Christ which it represented, by which the atonement is really made. So the reason is double;
17:15 That eateth - Through ignorance or inadvertency; for if it was done knowingly, it was more severely punished. A stranger - Who is a proselyte to the Jewish religion: other strangers were allowed to eat such things, Deu 14:21, out of which the blood was either not drawn at all, or not regularly.
17:16 His iniquity - The punishment of it, and therefore must offer a sacrifice for it.