2BC BIBLE STUDY NOTES
Wednesday in the Word
Second Baptist Church
January 23, 2019
Leviticus 17:1-17
Verses 1-7. The Ancient Israelites were people that rarely ate meat. This was not uncommon for people of ancient times. When people did eat meat, they often slaughtered it as a meat offering to the various false gods of the day. This practice of killing the animal in an open field was thought to bring a greater harvest of animals or crops as the blood of the animal was spilled in the field. God is now telling the people to stop this practice that they had picked up. The purpose of this regulation was not prevention, but cure. Pagan sacrifice which involved the worship of “goat-demons” was something which the Israelites had learned in Egypt and were persisting to practice in the wilderness. The commandment contained in verses 1-7 was thus intended to bring a particular false practice to a halt. The more we learn of these people, the more we realize how much idolatry and false worship they had learned in Egypt and brought with them into the wilderness. Thus, Joshua, the successor to Moses, would have to command the next generation of Israelites: “Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD” (Josh. 24:14; cf. also Amos 5:25-26). Not only did they worship false gods with these animal sacrifices in the fields, but they had various kinds of orgies connected to theses gods as well, much of which we will see in the next chapter. Apparently, the people of that day had a “killing ritual” which they employed in slaughtering their beasts, and this ritual was, in reality, pagan. The slaughtering of an animal by an Israelite was thus destined to be an act of worship, either of God or of a “goat-demon.” There was no purely “secular” slaughter, but only a sacred ritual, of one kind or the other. God’s command in verses 3-7 instructed the Israelites to exchange their heathen practices for those which worshipped Him. The Israelites were slow to stop these practices.
Verses 8-9. The previous command specifically related to the “fellowship (peace) offering,” for this was the only offering which enabled the offeror to partake of the meat of his sacrifice. What of sacrifices other than the “fellowship” offering? The regulation of verses 8 and 9 plugs any “loophole” which might be abused by some. No other offering or sacrifice could be made which is not made at the tent of meeting. This assures that the priests will offer the people’s sacrifices according to God’s instructions, already laid down in previous chapters. In the light of the Israelites’ pagan sacrificial practices, no sacrificial act was left to occur outside the camp, away from the scrutinizing eye of the priests. God makes any kind of sacrifices outside of the temple unlawful.
Verses 10-13. The previous regulations had to do with the place and with the ritual by which the blood of a sacrificial animal was shed and then disposed of. The regulation of verses 10-13 seeks to prevent another way in which blood was misused in the ancient Near East--by eating it. The regulation of verses 10-13 forbids both the Israelite and the alien to eat the blood of any animal. First, we can see a health reason for not eating any blood. Blood would carry any pathogen that the animal had and could easily start an outbreak. Also, the blood was seen as the currency that God required for the sacrifice. Only God could receive the blood. A person eating blood was not worthy of the payment. Thus, anyone who eats the blood of an animal will be “cut off’ from his people, an expression which, at best, refers to one’s expulsion from the nation, and, at worst, execution, either by the hand of man or by a direct act of God. This command includes the blood of wild game, as well as of domestic animals (v. 13). It makes sense that the blood of wild animals would be singled out here, since the previous regulations have required the animals from the Israelites’ flocks or herds to be offered at the tent of meeting, where the blood would have been disposed of by the priest. The blood of the wild animal must be poured out on the ground and covered, buried, if you would.
Verses 14-17. The previous regulations have pertained to either domestic or wild game, which the Israelite kills. What about those animals which have died naturally (that is, by some kind of accident) or have been killed by another animal? In this case, the blood of the victim would not and could not have been poured out, as God had instructed above. The principle of not eating the blood of an animal, because its life is in its blood, is first reiterated in verse 14, along with a repetition of the consequences for the violator. In verse 15 it is made clear that such an animal, which has died apart from the hand of man, may be eaten, but since the blood could not be poured out as per the instructions given, the individual who thus eats of this animal’s flesh will be unclean, and must therefore wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening time he will be clean.
What we see in this chapter, is that from very early on, God was progressively showing his people the value of the blood. This would come to its fulfillment in the atoning blood of Christ. God was showing the people that the blood was not to be taken lightly because it was the BLOOD that would bring life.
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