Leviticus 17

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:32:00utc

About the Place to Sacrifice and about Blood 17:1-16

a. The Place of Sacrifice 17:1-9

This is an interesting portion of Scripture. The point is not, in the first place, where the sacrifice was to be brought but to whom it should be sacrificed. In Deut. 12 we read certain ordinances regarding the place where the burnt offering altar was to be placed later when Israel had entered the land. That is not the point here. The Israelites had been enticed by the habits of the surrounding nations to bring sacrifices to demons. We read in vs. 7, "They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols to whom they prostitute themselves." The KJV uses the term "sacrifices unto devils." The RSV calls them "satyrs" and TLB, "evil spirits." The Dutch translation uses the equivalent of "spirits of the open field."[ 1 ] The literal meaning of the Hebrew word used is "the hairy ones."

Among the mountain tribes of Irian Jaya, we find the concepts of different kinds of spirits. The Me tribe knows its "spirits of the earth,"[ 2 ] "spirits of the water,"[ 3 ] etc. These spirits were pacified with bloody sacrifices. Evidently, the Israelites in Moses' day did the same thing. God calls this "prostitution."

The Israelites were not required to be vegetarians, but God wanted them to see a connection between the forgiveness of their sins and their daily food. The blood of their fellowship offerings had to be sprinkled around the altar and the fat had to be burned upon the altar. The breast of the animal was given to the priest. We find these regulations in chapter 3 and 7. The meat had to be eaten as an act of fellowship with God.

Eating meat is, of course, an act that is the result of man's fall into sin. Before death entered God's creation, that is before the fall, there was no question of anybody eating meat. The consumption of meat is an accommodation to man's fallen state. It is important to remember this because the verses of this chapter draw their power from this fact.

I feel sympathy toward vegetarians. It seems to be a more pacific attitude for a Christian to abstain from eating meat. The Hindu Mahatma Gandhi and the atheist George Bernard Shaw were vegetarians because they abhorred the killing of animals. This attitude seems to be more morally correct than that of Christians who eat meat. God, however, wants us to live with the reality of the presence of sin and, consequently, with the atonement for sin by the shedding of blood. The philosophy of the vegetarian denies the reality of God's revelation. Opposed to the humane view of life we find the attitude of most Christians who have no qualms at all about the slaughter of animals. It seems that Gandhi's abhorrence of death is closer to God's attitude than that of many Christians who hunt and kill animals for sport.

The important lesson of this section is that we consider sin and death as realities to be reckoned with. This does not mean that we should welcome sin and death as friends and that we should accept our condition as normal.

According to what God says to Moses, Aaron, and the Israelites, the killing of animals in itself, without the recognition of sin and atonement, is murder. Eating of meat is a dilemma that is only resolved in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Golgotha. It could be that in the paradox of eating meat, which we experience as tasty, God wants us to understand something of the paradox of the cross. The murder of Jesus Christ is at the same time the greatest crime in history as well as the greatest revelation of God's love and the only way to fellowship with God.

Most people were shocked when Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink."[ 4 ] But they ate their saddle of lamb or their roast beef without blinking an eye. Albert Schweitzer was partly right when he proposed his "reference for life."[ 5 ] But he too denied the reality of sin.

For the Israelites the problem was a different one. Their concern was whether they should sacrifice to demons or to YHWH. This problem lies outside our field of vision. The only thing we have in common with them on this level is our fellowship with God. Everyone who does not love God with "all his heart and with all his soul and with all his mind and with all his strength,"[ 6 ] commits adultery in whatever sense it may be.

b. The Prohibition against Eating Blood 17:10-16

There is a direct connection between this section and the preceding one; they treat the same subject. I do not know if the verse: "For the life of a creature is in the blood," can be taken as a scientific definition (vs. 11). The Dutch translation read: "For the soul of the flesh is in the blood."[ 7 ] This can be rather misleading. It all depends on what we understand when we use the word "soul" as to how we would interpret the above. Medical science tends to lean in the direction that the seat of our emotions and our will is in the brain. But the brain does not function without blood either. As long as science does not know what life is, scientists do not have any grounds for attacking the Biblical statement that "the life of a creature is in the blood."

The point of this section is that man forfeited his life when he disobeyed God's commandments. God demands the blood of man, that is, his life. Under the Old Testament dispensation, the blood of animals was acceptable to God instead of the blood of the man who sinned. This is the lesson God wants man to learn from the commandment that is given here. A man who eats blood indicates that he rejects God's way of salvation. He acts as if he has a right to his own life.

The question for us who live under the dispensation of the New Testament is whether we are subject to the same prohibition of eating blood. After all, we live no longer under the shadow of atonement when sin was covered by animal blood, but we live under the reality of atonement by the blood of Christ. There are two possibilities: One can respect the blood of animals because it provided atonement for human sin in the past. One can also say that since the blood of Christ has cleansed us once for all from sin, the blood of an animal has no longer any significance in the context of atonement. The latter possibility suggests that it makes no difference whether we want to use it for human consumption or not. I lean toward the latter view.

A hunter was allowed to eat the animal he shot as long as he covered the blood with earth. The eating of an animal that had died by itself or had been killed by another animal was not forbidden, but it caused the eater to be temporarily unclean.

Against the background of this chapter, it is interesting to read the epistle the Synod of Jerusalem wrote to the church in Antioch. In the account in Acts we read: "It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell."[ 8 ]

I presume that the reason for James' judgment here was the matter of the testimony of the Gospel to the Jews who lived in the various pagan cities and who were not ready to set aside the commandments of Leviticus chapter 17. Even after hearing about the significance of the blood of Christ for the cleansing of sin, they would regard pagans who had been converted to Christianity and who ate blood, as people who sinned against God's commandments. It must have taken time before the full significance of the blood of Christ penetrated to the new Christians and influenced their attitude toward the blood of animals.

We find the same prohibition against the consumption of animal blood in Genesis, Leviticus, and Deuteronomium.[ 9 ]

[ 1 ] "veldgeesten."

[ 2 ] maki ka eniya

[ 3 ] uwo ka eniya

[ 4 ] John 6:53-55

[ 5 ] "Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben."

[ 6 ] See Mark 12:30

[ 7 ] "Want de ziel van het vlees is in het bloed."

[ 8 ] Acts 15:19-21, 28,29

[ 9 ] Gen. 9:4; Lev. 3:17; 7:27; 19:26 and Deut. 12:16,23; 25:23.