0:05
Amen. So, uh, Leviticus 17 is where we're going we're going to stop in terms of our Leviticus study. Starting in chapter 18, we get into what is commonly known as the holiness code
0:17
and it gets into a lot of um horizontal relationships within the community. Very important section, but also one that goes all the way through to the end of
0:27
the book. So Lord willing, we'll tackle that one um on our next session. So Leviticus 17 is what we're going to talk about tonight. Then next week, Lord
0:38
willing, we'll talk about um how Leviticus 17 Leviticus 17 is dealt with in the life and ministry
0:48
of Jesus Christ. and then in two weeks uh going back to Leviticus 10 verse 10 and the teaching of holiness and just
0:58
summarize where we've been and what all of that means to uh to Christians to the church. So in Leviticus 17, we have
1:09
uh we have basically the source passage for something you're all
1:22
with. Kosher only kosher as it's used today even in Jewish circles is a far remove from what it was in Leviticus 17. Uh,
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one thing that any Orthodox rabbi will be very quick to point out is kosher is not a style of food. And so all of the packages that
1:46
say kosher style pretzels and all of that, that's that's totally wrong. It It's not like Mexican or Thai, it's it's not a type of food. It actually has to
1:59
do and it doesn't really even have to do with the preparation of the food. Ultimately, what it has to do with is the disposition of the animal. That's where it originally comes
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from. Now, as with most um Jewish practices, the rabbis got a hold of it and they have, you know, added to it as they had Torah in general. But the idea
2:23
of kosher then first of all is it's it's not a not a style of
2:41
a it's a preparation. Kosher preparation. Kosher starts at the slaughterhouse, not at the grocery store or the restaurant. um those in the rabbitic community that
2:55
certify and kosher is something that is now it's certified uh they're going to go all the way to what you do with the chicken, what you do with the cow, uh
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you know what you do with the lamb. And so it has to do with two forms of one um and they are
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related. They are very much related because certain forms of slaughter will not yield kosher food.
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And so the the way an animal is slaughtered, for example, a chicken if its neck is rung or a cow that is
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stunned, um that's not kosher because in order for it to be kosher, it's slaughter requires the shedding of blood. So that's that's the second thing
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with kosher. with kosher. is the disposition of the blood. And there's the connection with
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both of them actually or the connection with Leviticus with Leviticus 17. Leviticus 17 has the famous verse verse 11 where God says, "The life is in
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the blood and I have given it for you on the altar for atonement for your souls." That's where we're headed. That's the That's the apex of the chapter. But the whole chapter is about how an animal um
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is how do I say this? Yeah. How an animal is killed in order to be food. And because of the prohibition against consuming
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blood, kosher requirements are that however obviously the animal must first be a clean animal. You can't have a kosher pig. Doesn't matter how you prepare it. It's unclean. and therefore
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it's not kosher. But a deer, for example, we'll we'll talk about that in the in Leviticus 17. Um animals that you would raise in the herd or the flock or animals you would kill on a hunt, as
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long as the animal is clean, there is a Levitical law in terms of how it is killed and what is immediately done regarding the disposition of the blood.
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And so it's all it's all about blood in chapter 15 or 17. And it it really is kind of the the explanatory chapter for everything that's gone before because
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we've spent since chapter 1 listening to Moses or or the Lord tell Moses or the Lord tell Aaron about blood about what to do with the blood
5:39
about taking a bird and tying it up with hipup and dipping it in the blood or taking the blood and sprinkling it on the altar on the day of atonement or taking the blood with your thumb and and putting it on the sides of the altar or
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taking the blood and putting it on the the lobe of the right ear and the thumb of the right hand and the big toe of the right foot. It's it's always I mean there waters in there, but the common
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element is is blood. And so here in chapter 17, it's it's like the Lord is now saying, "Okay, now I'm going to just basically talk about blood and why you
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are not to consume it because of its significance. So this is the this is the uh the background for kosher. Um, and
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when you read this and then you you if you were to look up kosher online and just get the various things that are done now, you realize it's changed quite a bit. Uh, a lot of things that that are
6:37
done now um have nothing to do with with what the Bible says. Um, which is to be expected. Again, though, this is not about hygiene.
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As with the clean and unclean animals, what we're talking about here doesn't have anything to do with the with the um the the unhealthy aspect of blood, which it's
7:14
that that cannot even be proven that blood is inherently unhealthy. I'm not suggesting that you have any, but uh the point is actually one uh one
7:26
Jewish rabbi makes the comment many modern Jews think that the laws of kashroot, which is kosher preparation, are simply primitive health regulations
7:37
that have become obsolete with modern methods of food preparation. Well, it's kind of nice to know that modern Jews are as ignorant of their own traditions as modern Christians are. But they do
7:48
also have this idea that it's this archaic rule that had to do with the fact, you know, that they didn't know how long to cook pork or blood was in inherently unhealthy in that day. But he
8:00
says, however, health is not the main reason for Jewish dietary laws. And in fact, many of the laws of Kashroot have no known connection with health. Now
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that's that's just a contemporary Jewish rabbi who wrote a number of articles on kosher and the the whole concept there similar very similar I think
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yes right they also the Muslims also have food laws and preparation requirements and they they have uh what what is it called halal
8:38
halal yes okay um and so yeah It's it's parallel. Yes. Um and we we don't really have that. Although in certain times and in certain areas of Christianity,
8:50
denominations, this comes back, this idea of how you prepare your food. Uh for example, we're going to talk about um consuming the meat with the blood or
9:00
the blood with the meat. Well, um there there are at least there certainly were people that think that that means that you must cook the steak well done. That that if it's, you know,
9:13
if you have it rare or even medium rare, you're eating the blood with the meat. That's that's what people think. Um that's what we we kind of grew not I
9:25
didn't grow up with, but that was generally the view of of of your family. Although having been around cows all day long, I think I'd probably want them well done, too. But, you know, we we
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have these ideas uh the Jews do, the Muslims do. And it's interesting the the I think the Muslims are even closer uh to the Jewish view in that it does have
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to do with the blood. Blood is a very significant issue in this in this whole concept of sacrifice. But but um God is
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making it an issue of covenant life and he's saying it not just when you're coming to the tabernacle. And as we look at Leviticus 17, we'll see that
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it may not cover every eventuality in which a Jew would find himself um with a with a dead animal, a slaughtered or or or hunted animal. But there aren't a
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whole lot of others that I could think of that aren't covered in Leviticus 17. And it does, as I said, it centers around the idea of
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find that blood is a major element in all ancient cultures and religions and all ancient rituals in those religions. Um
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and blood is is something that has um a unique um characteristic and power within human society unlike any other
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liquid and certainly unlike any other bodily fluid. Um blood has a place that is not occupied by any others. um a 19th
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century anthropologist century anthropologist um who professed to be a believer. I don't have any reason to think that he wasn't um even though he was an anthropologist but he studied the the
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ancient Smitic people and their religious rituals and he wrote this in his work. He said the notion that by eating the flesh or particularly by
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drinking the blood of another living being, a man absorbs its nature or life into his into his own is one is one which appears among
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primitive peoples in many forms. So the view in the ancient world was the
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I don't know a whole lot about cannibalism. Hasn't been something I've studied deeply, but I'm fairly certain that it wasn't because you were hungry. That most tribes that are that are even
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today that are cannibals, it is a part of their of their ritual. They they don't, you know, they don't have to run from everybody just in fear of being eaten by your neighbor.
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Um, and they do eat other meats and vegetables. That's not their only diet. But their But their their ritual to their gods involves not
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only killing a human sacrifice, but but eating it, consuming it. In ancient pagan cultures, um the the idea of
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eating your slain enemy's heart was to absorb the strength of that warrior into your own body, into your own strength.
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So this this idea is quite prevalent in ancient literature. um the idea that there is as as we read in um uh Leviticus
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17 I'm going to write this down victorious um absorption or absorption I'm not sure which one of the
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conquereds obviously that the the one who was conquered was was not as powerful as the one who conquered none Nonetheless, if this was a mighty enemy by drinking their blood or by eating the
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heart, the one who was victorious gains in power and becomes even more respected and and stronger in the eyes of his own tribe and feared in the eyes of the
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conquered tribe. So again, this is there's this life. I'm going to take this life and I'm going to absorb it into my own. And and that's the idea that we that we read in Levi Leviticus
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17. And that is essentially there's there's just a a complete uniformity in
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perspective. And that is blood is life. And the shedding of blood is is euphemistic for murder. Not not just the shedding of blood in a
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sacrificial way, but the shedding of blood even in the Old Testament is often a euphemism for murder. Like when when um uh God says to Noah, you know, if by
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man a man's blood is shed, well, what does that mean? If a man kills another man, then by man his blood shall be shed. He will be executed. So there's
15:10
that there's that concept. Blood is life. Now again, I've mentioned this many times. many times. Sometimes we as conservatives in our in
15:21
our biblical doctrine and our view of the inherency of scripture, we want to see the Bible to be so completely different from the pagan cultures around it that there's no similarity whatsoever
15:33
because the liberals over the past 200 years have taken these similarities and and now they're trying to tell us that that the Bible is borrowed from these
15:43
other cultures. other cultures. I don't think you have to go to one one extreme to the other. I think we can realize that that this is a common human race and that Israel was chosen out from
15:54
among the nations. And we're going to even read in chapter 17 that they're to stop doing something that they had been doing. So, um Joshua talks about Abraham
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or Abram and his fathers worshiping idols on the other side of the Euphrates. In other words, Abraham wasn't a Jew when God called him. That would have been completely annocronistic
16:16
to begin with, but he, you know, he wasn't he wasn't a Yahweh worshipper when God called him. He was a pagan. And so, it's out of that millu of paganism
16:28
that God draws. And it's very similar to us that when we're born again, we don't all of a sudden become some ethereal elf, some saint with no emotion. No,
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we're still the person we were in the culture in which we were born and grew up. And it doesn't mean that that culture is all I mean in orientation it
16:50
is all is all wrong but not everything that the world does is wrong. It's still I mean it's still filled with men and women created in the image of God. And so when we look
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at these similarities what we should look at is not oh they Moses was borrowing from the Babylonians. No, what we should look at is the Bible gets it
17:13
right. That when you look at the pagan literature, you see that it's it's demonic. Um, it's satanic. It's it's it's pagan. It's polytheistic. Um, it's
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degrading. It's it's inhuman. And then you look at the scriptures and you realize, well, this is a corrective of all of all of that. This this is this is okay. This is what you were doing. And and what the
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pagans were doing was a corruption of the original the original truth. They understood the power that blood represents in life, but they completely corrupted it. And they did
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that which God is naturally going to forbid. And that is they sought to augment their augment their life through something other than than
17:59
himself. And that's what that's really the the root of where we're heading with this. So, uh, the idea then about the forbidding of blood, as I mentioned, it
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does go back all the way to Genesis, and I want to quickly read, um, well, I have it here, Genesis 9, and we've read this before, um, with
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regard to um the concept of of the animals. So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the
18:31
fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on and all that move on the earth, and all of the fish of the sea." There's that Genesis one pattern
18:42
again in terms of the animals of the air, the animals of the land, and the animals of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you
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all living things or all things even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its
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blood. Surely for your lifeblood, I will demand a demand a reckoning. From the hand of every beast I will I will require it, and from the
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hand of man. from the hand of excuse me every man's brother I will require the life of man. Um basically this is is this gets into the Levitical laws in
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terms of uh for example if if a bull gores and kills uh a neighbor. You know there's something you need to do about that because God will require at the at
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the hand it's kind of a obviously it's it's metaphoric. It's at the hand of every beast and at the hand of every man. And then immediately he goes into if any man shed another man's blood by
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man, his blood shall be shed. For man was created in the image of God. So that that follows this passage and here all the way back and this is you know this is the start of in a sense um not a new
20:05
humanity uh but it's kind of a restart for the Adamic humanity and it starts with the common be fruitful and multiply but it changes in that God is now giving
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man meat pri prior to this all evidence shows that mankind was vegetarian him. Um, and that animals were also um now
20:30
now we have a completely different paradigm on earth and and yet we have this Leviticus 17 command all the way back in Genesis 9. You will not eat the
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meat with its blood. But that that's again what leads to kosher. And as we read in Leviticus 17, the idea is you you must drain the
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blood out of the animal for it to be acceptable then as meat. It does it does not have to do I I don't believe but it does not have to do with how far you
21:05
cook your meat. It has to do with the dispos. You cannot leave the animal with its blood in it. Which as I said earlier means you cannot strangle, you cannot
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electrocute or stun, you cannot whatever means that um that we use today to slaughter animals if it doesn't shed the
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blood. And I'm not saying that that we have to follow this anymore. Let me let me interject that. uh if we if it doesn't shed the blood then at the very basic basis it's not kosher okay and it
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would not meet with the Jewish Leviticus 17 laws and so that puts all of our attention in Leviticus 17 really on the blood and if we look at Leviticus
21:53
17 we see that it does have a an interesting and and really unique structure unlike any any other passage at least in
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Leviticus. I'm I'm not sure there are any others that I can think of, but its structure is that of an inverted V. So, we're going to look now at at the actual
22:33
And at the top, the top, the apex we have verses 10-
22:52
12. The the chapter hinges on these three verses in the middle. Um there's the introductory verses 1 and two. Uh but then verses 3-7 they they deal
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uh and we'll talk about these in in detail in a moment. Then verses 8 and N. Then as we come back
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down, as we come back down the V, verses 13 and 14. And I'm going to put the next one in a different color because this one, this one gave me fits. Verses 15 and
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16. Um, and I'm I'm going to present. Now, that's not much different, but Oh.
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verses 15 and 16 are difficult uh for a couple of couple of reasons. The first reason is syntactical. The way each of these little sections is written tells us that
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they are an individual section in the overall chapter because they each start. So if we say this is one, two, three and
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four and this is five. So those are the those are little subsections of the chapter. Okay. One, two, three and
24:40
all start and end the same way. They all start with the Hebrew word translated if any man. Now it may be translated different
24:52
ways. If any Israelite, but it is literally if any man. So if any man and then it goes on as to what the man does, he will be cut off. And so it
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starts with that and it ends with some with some form of being cut
25:18
off. Verses 15 and 16 don't have that formula. So that's the first anomaly for verses 15 and
25:28
16. The second is that verses 15 and 16 seem to permit something that Deuteronomy 14 forbids. And also it permits something that seems to go
25:38
against the basic gist of Leviticus 17. And I want to deal with that first because I don't I don't see it as as a major issue. It's just one that I
25:50
haven't solved. I just I I haven't solved it. But let's look at verses 15 and 16 and kind of get them out of the way. I I hope this won't be controversial because it it's not really
26:01
um well in my opinion it's not a major issue. Um but I I do want to show that it's it's a little bit problematic. Verses 15 and 16
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dies, so it does have kind of the if any man start, but doesn't have the same ending. If any person eats an animal which dies or is torn by beasts, whether he is a native or an alien, he shall wash his clothes and
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bathe in water and remain unclean until evening, and then he will become clean. But if he does not wash them or bathe his body, then he shall bear his
26:51
guilt. See, it doesn't have the cut off. It just it ends with the different ending. So, it doesn't have quite that same formula as the other four.
27:03
The the the main problem is that Deuteronomy forbids any Israelite from eating an animal that either died of its
27:14
own or was torn by other animals. Now, it was permissible to give that to that to strangers. You could you could give that to to someone else, to a non-Jew, but a
27:27
Jew was not allowed to do that. So you do you have a problem here. Okay. Um whereas Leviticus 17 seems to allow it. Deuteronomy 14, I'm pretty sure it's
27:38
14. I have it in the notes forbids it. I wasn't able to solve the what seems to be a discrepancy there. And I
27:48
haven't I haven't found anybody who who gives u uh you know the the the the typical modern approach which is in the Old Testament usually liberal
28:00
usually is that God changed his mind that that a particular law turned out to be impractical and therefore he he he uh relieved that one and and gave another
28:24
his iniquity. Okay. Uh well, the there's several iniquities we're going to look at here and that may be the solution that the the iniquity may be that he's doing something that he shouldn't be doing. Aaron,
28:36
it's notable though 12 12. Yeah. Well, I was thinking I was thinking,
28:58
but it's but it's a logical one. And we'll we'll see that one. Um, this one's not a logical one for the very reason of Leviticus 17. In Leviticus 17, it it kind of
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summarized the crucial aspect of knowing how the animal died because you must know about the disposition of the blood. An animal that dies of itself doesn't
29:20
bleed to bleed to death and therefore the animal was and and the heart stopped. So it's too late. The animal has not been killed in a proper manner.
29:32
Okay. So the the very gist this is again this is the complicated part but this may be his iniquity that in that in eating and and it may be clarified then by Deuteronomy
29:43
in that you you don't do this it also may be that his iniquity is his corpse uncleanness that he has touched the corpse of a of a dead animal. I I don't
29:55
know again these are I don't I don't believe the Bible contradicts itself. I think that when we when I encounter these things, I do my best to try to figure out what what one means versus
30:07
the other one. And if I don't, I just chalk that up to I I'm not seeing something. But bearing is iniquity. That's a new formula, isn't it? It's it's not used in the rest of Leviticus.
30:18
It's he's cut off. And that we'll talk about in a moment because that's that's a word that can mean a number of different things. Um but bearing his iniquity is is the language of um the
30:30
purity laws that that you know if you don't uh submit yourself to the purity rituals then then the uncleanness that well the uncleanness that you have that
30:41
you have embied or that you have acquired now becomes iniquity because now it's it's rebellion. And so it's like well what is that iniquity or what is that guilt? And
30:51
that word can be um is somewhat flexible in Hebrew and it may be the touching of a a corpse. But if if if Deuteronomy is
31:02
the fundamental rule, then the iniquity may be the fact that he ate of an animal uh whose blood was not properly
31:33
Yeah. And the guilt offering if if guilt is the word. I don't know whether ESV I didn't look into the actual Hebrew word, but if the guilt offering had to do with actual offenses where you defrauded your
31:43
neighbor. Okay. Um whereas the other ones, the sin offering, especially the trespass offering, they were for ignorant sins. Um and Numbers 5 tells us
31:54
that for presumptuous sin, there is no offering. Now, I don't I don't think a man is maliciously rebelling against God when he takes a dead animal and takes it home and cuts it up and has it for a
32:06
meal. I think he's he's still violating the principles that are behind all of this. And that is he's he's consuming the the blood with its with
32:21
the meat. The penalty in verse 16 though in Deuteronomy or sorry Leviticus 17 doesn't seem to
32:31
fit what we read up here. Okay. So it's an anomaly. Um, I I don't feel like I have, you
32:43
know, as you read if you read through the notes, you get to that section. Um, you you might think, well, Chuck didn't do much with this one. Hopefully, I did better than most commentaries. I don't just reread the passage to you. That's I
32:56
mean, you I'm serious. You get in these chapters, you pull up the commentary, you think this is a renowned and and they're just rereading. It's like, where's my my blanket and and my wafer? I they're going to sit us around and
33:07
reread the chapter to us. But they use different words and that is so helpful. I could just buy a paraphrase. Um it's frustrating. And so I hope I don't do
33:17
that. If I do that, let me know. All right. So verses 15 and 16, I want to kind of get them out of the way. Um if you want to dig into them, I I encourage you to do so. And if you if you come up
33:28
with something, I encourage you to send me an email and let me know. But going back now to the the inverted V, the other ones, um you we do have this this
33:40
formula. And yet we're we're kind of moving um up to a an apex in verses 10 through 12. But I want to talk about this this
33:51
phrase. We're kind of going to move around a little bit, but look at this idea here of being cut off.
34:16
Well, there are a many many places in the Old Testament where the phrase cut off is is used with with respect to a judicial act concerning somebody within Israel. They are cut off. And and what I
34:27
want to say is that there there seems to be a a gradation of punishments that involve being cut off. It's more of a rubric
34:38
than it is an actual judicial sentence that is consistent all the way across the board. So cut off can mean for
34:50
example um uh forbidden from the cult but not the
35:16
community. Now, this is still in our day and age. Um, you know, that's that's we talked about excommunication and how it really doesn't mean anything anymore because if a church excommunicates somebody, they simply go
35:27
to a different church the following Sunday. No questions asked and no judgments made. So that whole idea is is meaningless. We have to put ourselves in
35:37
the in the um the context of a people who themselves are not mighty and
35:48
powerful though they live in the midst of powerful of powerful empires as well as many other peoples their size or a little larger that are
36:00
all very all very militant. So all of the all the itites of that land, the Hittites, the the Hittites were actually an empire. Um the Jebusites, the the the Hivites, all of
36:12
them, they were not just peaceloving hippies dwelling, you know, coexisting. They were constantly fighting. And we see this in the book of Judges, for example, that they didn't just fight the
36:23
Israelites, they fought each other as well. And so here's this um kind of this mly crew of of former slaves that Yahweh has
36:35
taken out from Egypt and he's placed them. He hasn't placed them off in some safe distant mountain where they can live and dwell in harmony and peace. No,
36:45
they're right in the middle of a very very active. They're right in the middle of of the Levant. and all of the traffic between Egypt and the me Mesopotamia would go straight through because
36:57
there's a there's an ocean on one side and a desert on the other. So they're they're they're really very vulnerable and and much of what we read when we
37:07
read about God's promises, if you will obey my commands, then this will go for you and this will go your way and you know you will be a victor and not not defeated. This was a very present danger
37:20
in their lives. So to be cut off from the cult, I think meant something. Now, I think as generations went on, it probably meant less and less as they generally apostatized. And you see that
37:32
in the prophets, but we're not we're not there yet. We talked about this fact uh I think last week as they went into the land and they ended up much further from
37:42
the temple much more scattered and there wasn't a wilderness right outside the camp anymore I think they did become very complacent and laxidasical concerning these things and I think
37:54
that's true within Christianity as well during times of persecution Christian devotion has has historically been much more acute uh than it is in times of
38:06
prosperity. So, u this idea of being cut off from the cult but not the community, that's still a punishment. But I do think it's the scripture does seem to
38:17
follow the principle that the punishment fit the crime. In other words, cut off doesn't mean the same thing in every single offense. The second one would be however exiled from the community.
38:33
meaning cult meaning the tabernacle and later the temple. Yeah. Yeah. I know the word has a you know David Caresh kind of Jim Jones kind of
38:44
uh connotation but that's not that's not what the word means. So they're exiled from the
38:57
community and even even these seem to have um uh two degrees. Uh one is outside the camp and as I I've said before there there seem to be a sizable camp outside the camp. You know, if you
39:09
look at the the impurity laws and how long they needed to be outside the camp before they could come back into the camp, you at least you probably had a fair number of of people with skin
39:20
afflictions that were tagging along outside the camp. Yeah. Right. A business opportunity. Oh, that's that's a good Jewish thought. Um so you have you you know you have
39:31
outside the camp but then you have the idea of of cast away exiled
39:42
um that the person is simply you're you're not coming back. And and these are all there are examples of the phrase cut off seeming to mean all of these different ones.
39:54
Then finally there's the one that seems most obvious and then that is
40:04
executed. I mean when when God says if if man's blood is shed by man then by man that man's blood will be shed. That's that's execution. That's that's capital punishment. And they did have that. And that's and it's also used uh
40:16
the phrase cut off may be you know maybe cut off from the tabernacle, cut off from the camp or cut off from the land of the living. the the phrase can can
40:27
can have that flexibility, but there is an additional an additional um phrase that when added to it does seem to at least intensify it. And it
40:38
does it's not not really very often, but we read we read this. I will set my set my face against him.
41:00
Well, this is the opposite of the ironic benediction where, you know, where Aaron says, "May may God's countenance shine upon you." Um, in other words, literally, "May God's face be toward
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you." And this is I'm setting my face against him. That sounds really serious. Now the only other place that
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we we can look at this is um where um the people would offer up their children to Molech and make their children pass through the fire of Molech was basically
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sacrificing their sacrificing their children. And the Lord responds by saying I will set my face against that man and against his family if they don't deal with
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deal with it. and and so um the context there again seems very much like that if you read this you're certainly not dealing with
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with just that and probably not even um a a exile from the community that is remediable that you know there's a chance of getting back is no they've
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committed in a sense they've committed an unpardonable sin and God has set his face against them and at that point the only u the only logical conclusion is
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death or or if it is not death then it is it is this permanent exile where there's no hope of restoration to
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Now the psalm that Jesus cries out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? forsaken me? That's really what it's talking about. Why have you set your face against
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me and what followed that? Jesus's that? Jesus's death. So, it it it it does seem to be
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the the most intense form of being cut off. And it is judicial even in the sense of Jesus's death. We know that it's judicial, not in the sense that he
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had sins for which he was being judged, but he became sin. And as Paul says in Romans 8, sin was condemned in the flesh on the cross. So God set his face
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against his own son in order to gain the victory and defeat sin. So this is all kind of wrapped up this idea of uh of being cut off and God setting his face.
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Here we read this phrase. We don't read it in any of these passages. We read it in this one when we get to the that's one of the
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things that makes that the peak as well as what it says. Um everything leads up to it and then kind of flows away from it in Leviticus 17. But in uh verses 10
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through 12, and I think it's actually verse 10, let me let me go back there and and um confirm that. Um yeah, verse 10. and any man from the house of Israel
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or from the aliens who sojurnn among them who eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him
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off. It also goes from the passive, he will be cut off to the active, I will cut him off.
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So one of the reasons why um this this inverted V is significant is that the
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decreases and by the time you get to verse 16 or verse 15 the person's unclean until unclean until evening. That's not exactly God setting his face and personally cutting him off.
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Um, so that that means that as we read these things, here's really the hinge of it all. That that's that's the key note. That's not to say
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the other passages aren't as important, but they they gain their importance, I think, essentially as examples of those key verses in the
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center. So, let's take a look at them. I I don't want to spend a great deal of time because I want to spend most of the time here at the heart of the matter uh these three verses. But when we look
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Um not the kind that is in 15 and 16. uh no no no no apparent contradictions with any other verses um except the one in Deuteronomy 12 which is not really a contradiction. So he says any man from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox
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or a lamb or a goat in the camp or who slaughters it outside the camp and has not brought it to the doorway of the tent of meeting to present it as an offering to the Lord before the
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tabernacle of the Lord. Blood guiltiness is to be reckoned to that man. He has shed blood and that man shall be cut off from among his people. Blood guiltiness.
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That's Genesis That's Genesis nine. That's that's that whole concept of of shedding blood. And as as the Lord said in Genesis 9, I will require at the hand now he's talking about the blood of
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an animal. an animal. So God is going to require the blood of an animal at the hands of this man, which which seems a little bit, you know, with our idea of the of
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the food the food chain, you know, we kind of think that we're on top and that we're kind of immune from whatever we do. No, we're not. Okay, that that's
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what Deuteronomy or Genesis 9 says. I will require the blood from an animal or from a man. But here it's saying, I'm going to require of a man who kills an
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animal. Now, what do you notice about the animals mentioned? They are sacrificial animals. That's
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animals. That's significant because there are a number of other animals that are clean but are not sacrificial. Now this this
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this this provision is provision is um taken away in Deuteronomy 12. Um
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Yep. And he's going to give a reason in verses four through seven. Okay. Okay. So, he's going to explain why, but he's also going to uh to remove this provision. Um,
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provision. Um, oops, I closed the let me see if I have it in my in the notes. Might be quicker. um he's going to remove this provision in Deuteronomy
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in Deuteronomy 12 where he says that when you enter the land and you live too far away from where I will
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cause my name to dwell, he gives permission for them to then um sacrifice not sacrifice uh slaughter
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a a sacrificial animal at their c at their tent in the camp or in in their in their village. Um what is that
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verse? I don't I don't have it immediately. Deuteronomy 12:21. Okay, thank you.
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Um yeah. Okay, here it is. If the place which the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, well actually in verse 20 it says when when the Lord your God extends your border, they're in the land now and the
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place where God chooses to put his name is too far from you. Then you may slaughter of your herd and flock which the Lord has given you as I have commanded you and your
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sons may eat within your gates where whatever you desire. Your herd and your flock. That's your cattle and your goats and your lambs. In other words, that's
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your sacrificial animals. Now, we do know that not every animal in a herd or a flock was was um uh suitable for sacrifice, right? They had to be
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without blemish. Some of them had to be a year old, some were males, some could be females. Okay? So, there were further restrictions and they're not mentioned in in Leviticus 17. It just simply says
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your ox, your lamb, your sheep, or your goats. That's the category of sacrificial land animals. All right? And and then in Deuteronomy 12, we read that
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you may slaughter them at your gate. You're you're too far to have to take it up to the tabernacle in in Shiloh or or the temple in
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Jerusalem. So you may but he goes on to say in verse 23, only be sure not to eat the blood for the blood is the life and you shall not eat the life with the
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flesh. So there it is. That principle doesn't change. Now, Leviticus 17 refers to this as a perpetual ordinance. And yet, it seems like it's
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removed in Deuteronomy 12. I think the solution to that is that the perpetual ordinance is not that every animal that you're going to slaughter for a meal has to be taken to the temple. I think the
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perpetual ordinance is twofold. Verse what we read in 4-7. And also, don't eat the blood. That's the perpetual ordinance. Don't eat the blood.
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Just as a gazelle or a deer is eaten, so you shall eat eat it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. Um, that's not the unclean and the clean of the animals. That's the unclean and the
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clean of the people. So that if you are ritually unclean, you can still have dinner. I mean, you you know, you're outside the camp, you can still eat. Um,
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not the animals. No, it it's the subject. the unclean and the clean may eat of it. Right? So it's the unclean and the clean are those who are doing the eating, not the that which is being
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eaten. So Deuteronomy 12 is not changing that distinction between clean animals and unclean. It is a rather awkward way of putting it. When I first read I thought, whoa, I haven't seen that before. Um but the syntax is pretty
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clear that he's talking about it. There's no There's no um you know there were other things that this is also something that we we should
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consider. Most of the world today does not eat meat regularly. We regularly. We do but most of the world doesn't. And
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the ancient world rarely ate meat on a regular basis. It was usually a festival meal. Not not you know we take it for granted that we're going to get some
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protein with our you know with our salad. We no they had their salad. They didn't have they didn't eat a lot of meat. So what we're talking about here
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is is not something um that that just happened on a regular occurrence in every single every single house. But why the distinction in Leviticus 17 that is then removed in
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Leviticus 12? Well, I think Leviticus 17 gives us the reason. Verses
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Um, well, let me start at five. 5-7, excuse me. The reason is, so that helped when it says the reason is. That's really nice. Normally, we don't get it quite that clear. The reason is, see, there's a lesson to be taught
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Um, it's it's almost a catechism. Israel in the wilderness was fresh out of Egypt. And in fact, with the with the death of the generation that came out of Egypt, the the second generation is the
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first generation of the wilderness. And these are the ones that God said in in Exodus 19, if you will obey my commands, you will be to me a holy
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people, a royal priesthood. Well, that doesn't just mean, and we're going to see this in the holiness code, that doesn't just mean do this and do that. It does also mean stop
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doing these other things. It was very very common in the ancient world as well as in Paul's day. It was
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very very common that whatever meat that was to be slaughtered for food was somehow to be associated with the deity. So the whole idea of meat sacrificed to
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idols is is part of this millu that we're reading back in the wilderness because that was a that is a major feature of the pagan religion is is that
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your your meat not it wasn't sacrificed in the sense of a peace offering or whatever. It was just your evening meal but you took it to the temple to have it sanctified before you brought it home
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and prepared it for dinner. So this was the mindset of the ancient pagan world from which Israel has been extracted. And so he says the reason is so that the
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sons of Israel may bring their sacrifices which they were they used to be sacrificing in the open places in the open field that they may bring them to
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the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting to the priest and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord. In in other words, you got to
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change your whole mentality here. It's almost a sense of of Moses saying, "Do not be conformed to the world, but rather be transformed by the
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renewing of your mind." Now, I didn't make that phrase up. That that I, you know, was quoting somebody there. You don't you need to stop doing what you were doing and what you were doing in Egypt and apparently what they
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were still doing in the wilderness because he says, he keeps going on. He says um in verse six, "And the priest shall sprinkle the blood on the altar of the Lord at the doorway of the tent of
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meeting and offer up the fat in a smoke and soothing aroma to the Lord. And they shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot.
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This shall be a permanent statute to them throughout the generation." So the permanent statute is not that they have to take every goat or lamb or bull or
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cow to the place where God causes his name to dwell even if they're planning on using it for a family feast. That's not the perpetual stat um sacrifice the
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or statute. The perpetual statute is you don't worship, you don't offer up to God in your in your backyard. He has caused his name to
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dwell. This is the whole geography of holiness. Now God has caused his presence to dwell in the tabernacle and he has um situated that
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presence through the priesthood that he has anointed. And they are the only ones who are allowed to manipulate the blood. You
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don't see any sacrifice where the offerer sprinkles the blood. They kill the animal, but then the blood is manipulated by the priest for the
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offerings where Deuteronomy 12. Well, they'll feed him, right? They're they're to give him Yeah. Yeah. They're to give him some of the food. That's a
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good point. The Levites are now scattered also throughout the land. And their livelihood is dependent upon the people of the of the tribes who had an inheritance. And the the tribes were to
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remember the Levites. They were to give them some of the food. So that the actual dynamic was was still happening. Um but it it was really the the perpetual statute is you got to get it
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out of your mind that you can just do what you want and where you want to because in fact what you are doing and they say in my name but he says it's
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goat demons. It's not me. That's something really blows people's mind when you tell them I know you say you worship God but that's not God.
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and and they get they know they're not real happy with that uh that diagnosis but it's been happening for millennia where you know you know even those cultures that believed in one god it
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wasn't the true god and so what these people were doing they were doing it in the name it it's kind of like when when Aaron made the golden calf what did he say behold your god who brought you out
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of Egypt right tomorrow yeah a feast to Yahweh you know okay so it's like There we go. There we see it. And but this Did anybody catch the goat
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demon thing? Doesn't that kind of remind you of something? We just read Aazelle. Okay. And I don't know the I don't know what a connection there is.
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But I do want to point out that it was not made just by me. Um that it was made very very much by um by Jewish writers. Let me see if I can Where is that? Where
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is that? is that? Um, oh, I want to find that quote. Is that 226? Bear with me a moment. Um, I don't
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you know, the word actually means the furry one. So, I I don't know. No, that's that's not it. 224
