Deuteronomy 14, Dietary Laws

We continue to explore the impact of the first three commandments, of being fully devoted to YHWH.

Deuteronomy 14: 1-2, Forbidden Canaanite rituals

You are the children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.

Part of being the People of YHWH is avoiding some Canaanite worship traditions. Apparently cutting oneself during ecstatic worship was one such tradition (see I Kings 18: 25-29 for an example) and another was shaving one's forehead as a way of assuaging the spirits of the dead.

Deuteronomy 14: 3-8, Unclean mammals

Do not eat any detestable thing. These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,  the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep. 

You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. However, of those that chew the cud or that have a divided hoof you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the hyrax. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you. The pig is also unclean; although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses.

The NIV footnotes claim, "The precise identification of some of the birds and animals in this chapter is uncertain" and later suggests that the "hyrax" is possibly a "rock badger".

This passage on clean and unclean animals overlaps somewhat with Leviticus 11. From the viewpoint of our modern culture, these dietary laws appear strange and arbitrary. Among commentators, there appears to be no agreed upon explanation for these rules. Currid, in his commentary on Deuteronomy lists some suggested explanations for the distinctions between "clean" and "unclean" animals.  No one answer seems to explain all of the divisions. I will list four of the possibilities suggested by Currid, beginning with the explanations I find most convincing. 

1. The unclean animals were part of various cultic practices in Canaan and around the region.
2. The unclean animals are related, in some way, to other issues of cleanliness in the Torah, such as anything dealing with death or reproduction.
3. The divisions are symbolic: clean animals represented completion and unclean animals were incomplete in some way.
4. The dietary distinction are for hygienic reasons; unclean animals will make the people sick or carry diseases.

It is likely that the real reasons involved combinations of these.  I say more in a Sunday essay (see the blog post of April 30, 2023.)

Deuteronomy 14: 9-20, Unclean fish and birds

Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales. But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean.

You may eat any clean bird. But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat. All flying insects are unclean to you; do not eat them. But any winged creature that is clean you may eat.

On Day 5 of Creation, YHWH created the animals that live in the water or sky.  Here we have distinctions between clean and unclean for these animals.

Deuteronomy 14: 21, Carrion

Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to an alien living in any of your towns, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. But you are a people holy to the LORD your God. 

Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.

Don't eat carrion.  This naturally is linked to death and blood.

The last sentence may be related to another Canaanite cultic practice. (I also see a symbolic statement -- boiling a young goat in the milk of the nanny that birthed her seems unusually cruel.)

Deuteronomy 14: 22-23, Tithe

Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always.

We now seem to have moved into decrees related to the fourth commandment, regarding the Sabbath and related concepts.

Deuteronomy 14: 24-26, Giving from a distance

But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the LORD your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the LORD will choose to put his Name is so far away), then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the LORD your God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice.

If one cannot give grain, new wine, oil, animals from the flock, because the sanctuary is too far away, then one can exchange the tithe for silver and give that instead.

Deuteronomy 14: 27-29, Taking care of the Levites

And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own. At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

The tribe of Levi, those responsible for overseeing the sacrifices, are to be taken care of by the other tribes. This too is part of worship.

Brief Reactions: The clean/unclean dietary categories are difficult to understand and do not easily translate into our modern culture's distinction of various animal species. Much of this chapter instructs Israel to be different from the pagan cultures around them, but how the dietary laws fit in to this is unclear. As I say in a blog post (here), "For the modern Christian, who does not live in the ancient Near East culture of three thousand years ago, the dietary laws are not, by themselves, in effect."  So I am comfortable leaving this mystery unsolved....  :-)