Deuteronomio 14:3 Commento

Moses in this chapter teaches them, I. To distinguish themselves from their neighbours by a singularity, 1. In their mourning (Deu 14:1, Deu 14:2). 2. In their meat (v. 3-21). II. To devote themselves unto God, and, in token of that, to give him his dues out of their estates, the yearly tithe, and that every third year, for the maintenance of their religious feasts, the Levites, and the poor (Deu 14:22, etc.).

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 14 In this chapter some cautions are given against the use of some rites and ceremonies in mourning for the dead, with the reason thereof, Deu 14:1 and instructions about what are lawful to be eaten, and what not, whether of beasts, fishes, or fowl, Deu 14:3, and concerning eating one sort of tithes both at the place God should choose, and within their own gates, Deu 14:22.

Thou shall not eat any abominable thing. That is so either in its own nature, or because forbidden by the Lord; what are such are declared in the following verses. Thou shall not eat any abominable thing. That is so either in its own nature, or because forbidden by the Lord; what are such are declared in the following verses. Deuteronomy 14:4 deu 14:4 deu 14:4 deu 14:4These are the beasts which they shall eat,.... That is, which they might lawfully eat of, which were allowed for their food; for they were not obliged to eat of them if they did not choose it: the ox, the sheep, and the goat; which were creatures used in sacrifice, and the only ones, yet nevertheless they might be used for food if chosen.

Among the Jews, frugality was made a matter of precept by a very wise dispensation of the law. The Educator forbade them the use of innumerable things. He explained the reasons, the spiritual ones hidden, the material ones obvious, but all of which they trusted. Some animals [were forbidden] because they were [not] cloven-footed; others, because they did not ruminate their food; a third class, because they, alone among all the fish of the seas, had no scales; until finally there were only a few things left fit for food. And even of those he permitted them to touch, he placed a prohibition on the ones found dead or offered to idols or strangled. They could not even touch them. He imposed upon them a contrary course of action until the inclination engendered by habits of easy living be broken, because it is difficult for one who indulges in pleasures to keep himself from returning to them.

GOD'S PEOPLE MUST NOT DISFIGURE THEMSELVES IN MOURNING. (Deu 14:1-2) ye shall not cut yourselves . . . for the dead--It was a common practice of idolaters, both on ceremonious occasions of their worship (Kg1 18:28), and at funerals (compare Jer 16:6; Jer 41:5), to make ghastly incisions on their faces and other parts of their persons with their finger nails or sharp instruments. The making a large bare space between the eyebrows was another heathen custom in honor of the dead (see on Lev 19:27-28; Lev 21:5). Such indecorous and degrading usages, being extravagant and unnatural expressions of hopeless sorrow (Th1 4:13), were to be carefully avoided by the Israelites, as derogatory to the character, and inconsistent with the position, of those who were the people of God [Deu 14:2].

WHAT MAY BE EATEN, AND WHAT NOT. (Deu. 14:3-21) Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing--that is, anything forbidden as unclean (see on Lev 11:1).

The Israelites were not only to suffer no idolatry to rise up in their midst, but in all their walk of life to show themselves as a holy nation of the Lord; and neither to disfigure their bodies by passionate expressions of sorrow for the dead (Deu 14:1 and Deu 14:2), nor to defile themselves by unclean food (vv. 3-21). Both of these were opposed to their calling. To bring this to their mind, Moses introduces the laws which follow with the words, "ye are children to the Lord your God." The divine sonship of Israel was founded upon its election and calling as the holy nation of Jehovah, which is regarded in the Old Testament not as generation by the Spirit of God, but simply as an adoption springing out of the free love of God, as the manifestation of paternal love on the part of Jehovah to Israel, which binds the son to obedience, reverence, and childlike trust towards a Creator and Father, who would train it up into a holy people. The laws in Deu 14:1 are simply a repetition of Lev 19:28 and Lev 21:5. למת, with reference to, or on account of, a dead person, is more expressive than לנפשׁ (for a soul) in Lev 19:28. The reason assigned for this command in Deu 14:2 (as in Deu 7:6) is simply an emphatic elucidation of the first clause of Deu 14:1. (On the substance of the verse, see Exo 19:5-6).

With reference to food, the Israelites were to eat nothing whatever that was abominable. In explanation of this prohibition, the laws of Lev 11 relating to clean and unclean animals are repeated in all essential points in vv. 4-20 (for the exposition, see at Lev 11); also in Deu 14:21 the prohibition against eating any animal that had fallen down dead (as in Exo 32:30 and Lev 17:15), and against boiling a kid in its mother's milk (as in Exo 23:19).