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Leviticus 17:4 Bible in Basic English (BBE)

4 And has not taken it to the door of the Tent of meeting, to make an offering to the Lord, before the Lord's House, its blood will be on him, for he has taken life, and he will be cut off from among his people:

Cross Reference

Genesis 17:14 BBE

And any male who does not undergo circumcision will be cut off from his people: my agreement has been broken by him.

Deuteronomy 12:5-21 BBE

But let your hearts be turned to the place which will be marked out by the Lord your God, among your tribes, to put his name there; And there you are to take your burned offerings and other offerings, and the tenth part of your goods, and the offerings to be lifted up to the Lord, and the offerings of your oaths, and those which you give freely from the impulse of your hearts, and the first births among your herds and your flocks; There you and all your families are to make a feast before the Lord your God, with joy in everything to which you put your hand, because the Lord has given you his blessing. You are not to do things then in the way in which we now do them here, every man as it seems right to him: For you have not come to the rest and the heritage which the Lord your God is giving you. But when you have gone over Jordan and are living in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as your heritage, and when he has given you rest from all those on every side who are fighting against you, and you are living there safely; Then there will be a place marked out by the Lord your God as the resting-place for his name, and there you will take all the things which I give you orders to take: your burned offerings and other offerings, and the tenth part of your goods, and the offerings to be lifted up, and the offerings of your oaths which you make to the Lord; And you will be glad before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your men-servants and your women-servants, and the Levite who is with you in your house, because he has no part or heritage among you. Take care that you do not make your burned offerings in any place you see: But in the place marked out by the Lord in one of your tribes, there let your burned offerings be offered, and there do what I have given you orders to do. Only you may put to death animals, such as the gazelle or the roe, for your food in any of your towns, at the desire of your soul, in keeping with the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you: the unclean and the clean may take of it. But you may not take the blood for food, it is to be drained out on the earth like water. In your towns you are not to take as food the tenth part of your grain, or of your wine or your oil, or the first births of your herds or of your flocks, or anything offered under an oath, or freely offered to the Lord, or given as a lifted offering; But they will be your food before the Lord your God in the place of his selection, where you may make a feast of them, with your son and your daughter, and your man-servant and your woman-servant, and the Levite who is living with you: and you will have joy before the Lord your God in everything to which you put your hand. See that you do not give up caring for the Levite as long as you are living in your land. When the Lord your God makes wide the limit of your land, as he has said, and you say, I will take flesh for my food, because you have a desire for it; then you may take whatever flesh you have a desire for. If the place marked out by the Lord your God as the resting-place for his name is far away from you, then take from your herds and from your flocks which the Lord has given you, as I have said, and have a meal of it in the towns where you may be living.

Philemon 1:18-19 BBE

If he has done you any wrong or is in debt to you for anything, put it to my account. I, Paul, writing this myself, say, I will make payment to you: and I do not say to you that you are in debt to me even for your life.

Romans 5:20 BBE

And the law came in addition, to make wrongdoing worse; but where there was much sin, there was much more grace:

Romans 5:13 BBE

Because, till the law came, sin was in existence, but sin is not put to the account of anyone when there is no law to be broken.

Romans 4:6 BBE

As David says that there is a blessing on the man to whose account God puts righteousness without works, saying,

John 14:6 BBE

Jesus said to him, I am the true and living way: no one comes to the Father but by me.

John 10:9 BBE

I am the door: if any man goes in through me he will have salvation, and will go in and go out, and will get food.

John 10:7 BBE

So Jesus said again, Truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

Ezekiel 20:40 BBE

For in my holy mountain, in the high mountain of Israel, says the Lord, there all the children of Israel, all of them, will be my servants in the land; there I will take pleasure in them, and there I will be worshipped with your offerings and the first-fruits of the things you give, and with all your holy things.

Isaiah 66:3 BBE

He who puts an ox to death puts a man to death; he who makes an offering of a lamb puts a dog to death; he who makes a meal offering makes an offering of pig's blood; he who makes an offering of perfumes for a sign gives worship to an image: as they have gone after their desires, and their soul takes pleasure in their disgusting things;

Psalms 32:2 BBE

Happy is the man in whom the Lord sees no evil, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Exodus 12:15 BBE

For seven days let your food be unleavened bread; from the first day no leaven is to be seen in your houses: whoever takes bread with leaven in it, from the first till the seventh day, will be cut off from Israel.

Numbers 15:30-31 BBE

But the person who does wrong in the pride of his heart, if he is one of you or of another nation by birth, is acting without respect for the Lord, and will be cut off from his people. Because he had no respect for the word of the Lord, and did not keep his law, that man will be cut off without mercy and his sin will be on him.

Leviticus 20:18 BBE

And if a man has sex relations with a woman at the time when she is unwell, he has seen her fountain and she has let the fountain of her blood be uncovered, and the two of them are to be cut off from among their people.

Leviticus 20:16 BBE

And if a woman goes near a beast and has sex relations with it, you will put an end to the woman and the beast: their blood will be on them.

Leviticus 20:3 BBE

And my face will be turned against that man, and he will be cut off from his people; because he has given his offspring to Molech, making my holy place unclean, and making my holy name common.

Leviticus 18:29 BBE

For all those who do any of these disgusting things will be cut off from among their people.

Leviticus 17:14 BBE

For the blood is the life of all flesh: and so I have said to the children of Israel, You may not take any sort of blood as food, and any man who does so will be cut of.

Leviticus 17:10 BBE

And if any man of Israel, or any other living among them, takes any sort of blood for food, my wrath will be turned against that man and he will be cut off from among his people.

Leviticus 7:18 BBE

And if any of the flesh of the peace-offering is taken as food on the third day, it will not be pleasing to God and will not be put to the account of him who gives it; it will be unclean and a cause of sin to him who takes it as food.

Leviticus 1:3 BBE

If the offering is a burned offering of the herd, let him give a male without a mark: he is to give it at the door of the Tent of meeting so that he may be pleasing to the Lord.

Exodus 12:19 BBE

For seven days no leaven is to be seen in your houses: for whoever takes bread which is leavened will be cut off from the people of Israel, if he is from another country or if he is an Israelite by birth.

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Leviticus 17

Commentary on Leviticus 17 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Introduction

II. Laws for the Sanctification of Israel in the Covenant - Fellowship of Its God - Leviticus 17-25

Holiness of Conduct on the Part of the Israelites - Leviticus 17-20

The contents of these four chapters have been very fittingly summed up by Baumgarten in the following heading: “Israel is not to walk in the way of the heathen and of the Canaanites, but in the ordinances of Jehovah,” as all the commandments contained in them relate to holiness of life.

Holiness of Food. - The Israelites were not to slaughter domestic animals as food either within or outside the camp, but before the door of the tabernacle, and as slain-offerings, that the blood and fat might be offered to Jehovah. They were not to sacrifice any more to field-devils (Leviticus 17:3-7), and were to offer all their burnt-offerings or slain-offerings before the door of the tabernacle (Leviticus 17:8,_ 9); and they were not to eat either blood or carrion (Leviticus 17:10-16). These laws are not intended simply as supplements to the food laws in ch. 11; but they place the eating of food on the part of the Israelites in the closest relation with their calling as the holy nation of Jehovah, on the one hand to oppose an effectual barrier to the inclination of the people to idolatrous sacrificial meals, on the other hand to give a consecrated character to the food of the people in harmony with their calling, that it might be received with thanksgiving and sanctified with prayer (1 Timothy 4:4-5).


Verse 1-2

The directions are given to “Aaron and his sons, and all the children of Israel,” because they were not only binding upon the nation generally, but upon the priesthood also; whereas the instructions in ch. 18-20 are addressed to “the children of Israel,” or “the whole congregation” (Leviticus 18:2; Leviticus 19:2; Leviticus 20:2), just as special laws are laid down for the priests in ch. 20 and 21 with reference to the circumstances mentioned there.


Verses 3-7

Whoever of the house of Israel slaughtered an ox, sheep, or goat, either within or outside the camp, without bringing the animal to the tabernacle, to offer a sacrifice therefrom to the Lord, “ blood was to be reckoned to him; ” that is to say, as the following expression, “he hath shed blood,” shows, such slaughtering was to be reckoned as the shedding of blood, or blood-guiltiness, and punished with extermination (see Genesis 17:14). The severity of this prohibition required some explanation, and this is given in the reason assigned in Leviticus 17:5-7, viz., “that the Israelites may bring their slain-offerings, which they slay in the open field, before the door of the tabernacle, as peace-offerings to Jehovah,” and “no more offer their sacrifices to the שׂעירים , after whom they go a whoring” (Leviticus 17:7). This reason presupposes that the custom of dedicating the slain animals as sacrifices to some deity, to which a portion of them was offered, was then widely spread among the Israelites. It had probably been adopted from the Egyptians; though this is not expressly stated by ancient writers: Herodotus (i. 132) and Strabo (xv. 732) simply mentioning it as a Persian custom, whilst the law book of Manu ascribes it to the Indians. To root out this idolatrous custom from among the Israelites, they were commanded to slay every animal before the tabernacle, as a sacrificial gift to Jehovah, and to bring the slain-offerings, which they would have slain in the open field, to the priest at the tabernacle, as shelamim (praise-offerings and thank-offerings), that he might sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and burn the fat as a sweet-smelling savour for Jehovah (see Leviticus 3:2-5). “ The face of the field ” (Leviticus 17:5, as in Leviticus 14:7, Leviticus 14:53): the open field, in distinction from the enclosed space of the court of Jehovah's dwelling. “The altar of Jehovah” is spoken of in Leviticus 17:6 instead of “ the altar ” only (Leviticus 1:5; Leviticus 11:15, etc.), on account of the contrast drawn between it and the altars upon which they offered sacrifice to Seirim . שׂעירים , literally goats, is here used to signify daemones ( Vulg .), “field-devils” ( Luther ), demons, like the שׂדים in Deuteronomy 32:17, who were supposed to inhabit the desert (Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 34:14), and whose pernicious influence they sought to avert by sacrifices. The Israelites had brought this superstition, and the idolatry to which it gave rise, from Egypt. The Seirim were the gods whom the Israelites worshipped and went a whoring after in Egypt (Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:7; Ezekiel 23:3, Ezekiel 23:8, Ezekiel 23:19, Ezekiel 23:21, Ezekiel 23:27). Both the thing and the name were derived from the Egyptians, who worshipped goats as gods (Josephus c. Ap . 2, 7), particularly Pan , who was represented in the form of a goat, a personification of the male and fertilizing principle in nature, whom they called Mendes and reckoned among the eight leading gods, and to whom they had built a splendid and celebrated temple in Thmuis , the capital of the Mendesian Nomos in Lower Egypt, and erected statues in the temples in all directions (cf. Herod . 2, 42, 46; Strabo , xvii. 802; Diod. Sic. i. 18). The expression “a statute for ever” refers to the principle of the law, that sacrifices were to be offered to Jehovah alone, and not to the law that every animal was to be slain before the tabernacle, which was afterwards repealed by Moses, when they were about to enter Canaan, where it could no longer be carried out (Deuteronomy 12:15).


Verses 8-16

To this there are appended three laws, which are kindred in their nature, and which were binding not only upon the Israelites, but also upon the foreigners who dwelt in the midst of them.

Leviticus 17:8-12

Leviticus 17:8, Leviticus 17:9 contain the command, that whoever offered a burnt-offering of slain-offering, and did not bring it to the tabernacle to prepare it for Jehovah there, was to be exterminated; a command which involved the prohibition of sacrifice in any other place whatever, and was given, as the further extension of this law in Deut 12 clearly proves, for the purpose of suppressing the disposition to offer sacrifice to other gods, as well as in other places. In Leviticus 17:10-14 the prohibition of the eating of blood is repeated, and ordered to be observed on pain of extermination; it is also extended to the strangers in Israel; and after a more precise explanation of the reason for the law, is supplemented by instructions for the disposal of the blood of edible game. God threatens that He will inflict the punishment Himself, because the eating of blood was a transgression of the law which might easily escape the notice of the authorities. “To set one's face against:” i.e., to judge. The reason for the command in Leviticus 17:11, “For the soul of the flesh (the soul which gives life to the flesh) is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls,” is not a double one, viz., (1) because the blood contained the soul of the animal, and (2) because God had set apart the blood, as the medium of expiation for the human soul, for the altar, i.e., to be sprinkled upon the altar. The first reason simply forms the foundation for the second: God appointed the blood for the altar, as containing the soul of the animal, to be the medium of expiation for the souls of men, and therefore prohibited its being used as food. “For the blood it expiates by virtue of the soul,” not “the soul” itself. בּ with כּפּר has only a local or instrumental signification (Leviticus 6:23; Leviticus 16:17, Leviticus 16:27; also Leviticus 7:7; Exodus 29:33; Numbers 5:8). Accordingly, it was not the blood as such, but the blood as the vehicle of the soul, which possessed expiatory virtue; because the animal soul was offered to God upon the altar as a substitute for the human soul. Hence every bleeding sacrifice had an expiatory force, though without being an expiatory sacrifice in the strict sense of the word.

Leviticus 17:13

The blood also of such hunted game as was edible, whether bird or beast, was not to be eaten either by the Israelite or stranger, but to be poured out and covered with earth. In Deuteronomy 12:16 and Deuteronomy 12:24, where the command to slay all the domestic animals at the tabernacle as slain-offerings is repealed, this is extended to such domestic animals as were slaughtered for food; their blood also was not to be eaten, but to be poured upon the earth “like water,” i.e., not quasi rem profanam et nullo ritu sacro ( Rosenmüller , etc.), but like water which is poured upon the earth, sucked in by it, and thus given back to the womb of the earth, from which God had caused the animals to come forth at their creation (Genesis 1:24). Hence pouring it out upon the earth like water was substantially the same as pouring it out and covering it with earth (cf. Ezekiel 24:7-8); and the purpose of the command was to prevent the desecration of the vehicle of the soulish life, which was sanctified as the medium of expiation.

Leviticus 17:14-16

For as for the soul of all flesh...its blood makes out its soul: ” i.e., “this is the case with the soul of all flesh, that it is its blood which makes out its soul.” בּנפשׁו is to be taken as a predicate in its meaning, introduced with beth essentiale . It is only as so understood, that the clause supplies a reason at all in harmony with the context. Because the distinguishing characteristic of the blood as, that it was the soul of the being when living in the flesh; therefore it was not to be eaten in the case of any animal: and even in the case of animals that were not proper for sacrifice, it was to be allowed to run out upon the ground, and then covered with earth, or, so to speak, buried.

(Note: On the truth which lay at the foundation of this idea of the unity of the soul and blood, which others of the ancients shared with the Hebrews, particularly the early Greek philosophers, see Delitzsch 's bibl. Psychol. pp. 242ff. “It seems at first sight to be founded upon no other reason, than that a sudden diminution of the quantity of the blood is sure to cause death. But this phenomenon rests upon the still deeper ground, that all the activity of the body, especially that of the nervous and muscular systems, is dependent upon the circulation of the blood; for if the flow of blood is stopped from any part of the body, all its activity ceases immediately; a sensitive part loses all sensation in a very few minutes, and muscular action is entirely suspended... The blood is really the basis of the physical life; and so far the soul, as the vital principle of the body, is pre-eminently in the blood” (p. 245).)

- Lastly (Leviticus 17:15, Leviticus 17:16), the prohibition against eating “that which died” (Leviticus 11:39-40), or “that which was torn” (Exodus 22:30), is renewed and supplemented by the law, that whoever, either of the natives or of foreigners, should eat the flesh of that which had fallen (died a natural death), or had been torn in pieces by wild beasts (sc., thoughtlessly or in ignorance; cf. Leviticus 5:2), and neglected the legal purification afterwards, was to bear his iniquity (Leviticus 5:1). Of course the flesh intended is that of animals which were clean, and therefore allowable as food, when properly slaughtered, and which became unclean simply from the fact, that when they had died a natural death, or had been torn to pieces by wild beasts, the blood remained in the flesh, or did not flow out in a proper manner. According to Exodus 22:30, the נבלה (that which had fallen) was to be thrown to the dogs; but in Deuteronomy 14:21 permission is given either to sell it or give it to a stranger or alien, to prevent the plea that it was a pity that such a thing should be entirely wasted, and so the more effectually to secure the observance of the command, that it was not to be eaten by an Israelite.