Deuteronomy 14:1-21a--Clean and Unclean Food

Deuteronomy 14:1-21
English Standard Version

Clean and Unclean Food
14 “You are the sons of the LORD your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. 2 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

3 “You shall not eat any abomination. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. 6 Every animal that parts the hoof and has the hoof cloven in two and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 7 Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you. 8 And the pig, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch.

9 “Of all that are in the waters you may eat these: whatever has fins and scales you may eat. 10 And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.

11 “You may eat all clean birds. 12 But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, 13 the kite, the falcon of any kind; 14 every raven of any kind; 15 the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; 16 the little owl and the short-eared owl, the barn owl 17 and the tawny owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, 18 the stork, the heron of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat. 19 And all winged insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. 20 All clean winged things you may eat.

​21 “You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.

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Remember that chapters, verses, and headings were all added to our Bibles after the fact, and I think the break between verse 21 and verse 22 (and between headings in the ESV) got put in the wrong spot here--it seems like "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God" is the conclusion of the thought and is similar to how the LORD ended many of the sections on various laws and commandments--obey because of who I am and because of who I have made you to be.  While the second half of verse 21 may seem to still be talking about food, it's really talking about offerings that you would bring to the LORD and not mixing the new with the old to give the LORD something that isn't the best (we'll talk about that more next time and hopefully I remember to include verse 21b in tomorrow's passage).

In today's passage, the LORD lays out some basic rules for how the people of God were to be differentiated from the Canaanite peoples--we've already talked about differentiations in place of worship, manner of worship, and that they would only worship the invisible God of heaven and not worship any idols.  They are also not to be involved in self-mutilation which was part of the Canaanite practices.  They are also not to be tattooed or marked for the dead, because they do not belong to anyone or anything else other than to the LORD.

Next, the people of the LORD are to be different in what they do and do not eat.  Even today, this is one of the primary ways that people identify someone who is Jewish--they won't eat certain things and there are certain feasts during which they can only eat certain foods that are prepared in a certain way.  God has already given them a list of clean and unclean animals in the book of Leviticus, and those rules are repeated here.  On the "clean" list is any animal with a split/cloven hoof that chews its cud.  Animals that only met one of these two requirements were considered unclean and were not to be eaten and their carcasses were not to be touched.

Those were the rules for land-dwelling animals, but what about fish and other sea creatures?  The LORD specified that a fish must have both scales and fins to be clean.  Anything without both fins and scales, even if it had one or the other, but not both, would be unclean for them.

Then what about birds?  That's a bit more complicated.  They were not to eat any bird that dwelt on the ground nor were they to eat any birds that ate carrion.  They are also not supposed to eat winged insects with a few exceptions that were given in Leviticus 11:20-23 (locusts, bald locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers of any kind were allowed, but all other winged insects were forbidden).  Any creature that would "creep" or "swarm" on the ground was forbidden which takes care of most bugs, even those that are not insects, as well as worms and snakes.  You can see this in Leviticus 11 as well which gives a more detailed list of restrictions.

Finally, anything that has died naturally was unclean, even if it was a clean animal.  They were only to eat what they killed.  This would help keep them from eating diseased animals that would make them sick, however, they were allowed to give such meat to the foreigner or sojourner if they wanted to eat such meat.  Remember that the Jews would typically eat meat that was sacrificed to the LORD and they had to offer live sacrifices without disease or blemish of any kind.  If the foreigners and sojourners wanted to eat meat not suitable for sacrifice to the LORD, then that was up to them.

These are just some of the ways in which the people were to be holy to the LORD and separate and distinct from the rest of the people and the rest of the nations.  Do any of these things save them?  No, but they are God's good rules that He gave to His people to help protect them.  We understand many of these restrictions today to be the safest and healthiest diet that the LORD could have given to these people as it kept them away from the animals that are the "garbage disposals" of nature (those that eat dead and rotting flesh or will just eat anything even garbage and filth).  This would then determine what kind of livestock they would raise--if no one's going to be allowed to eat or touch pigs, no Jewish person should be raising them (read this into the story of the Lost Son as well as the pig farmers when Jesus casts the demons out of the man known as Legion).

Next time we'll connect this thought of clean and unclean foods with acceptable and unacceptable sacrifices to be brought for tithes and offerings.