Leviticuschapter 17
16 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls upon the altar; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.
It stands in The life of the flesh is in the blood, verses 10 to 14.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The blood of atonement. All sacrifices must be brought to the door of the tabernacle; no more altars in the field. Any Israelite or stranger who eats blood is cut off. ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.’ The verse is the book's theological anchor. Blood is not food; blood is life; life carries guilt and pays guilt. Hebrews 9:22 (‘without shedding of blood is no remission’) rests here. The chapter bridges the sacrificial system (1–16) and the holiness code (17–26) that follows.
Context
Law · Moses · Leviticus overview
The world of this chapter
- Who
- Aaron, his sons and all the Israelites together, including the foreigners living among them, who are bound by name five times in sixteen verses
- Where
- The camp at Sinai, the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, and the open country beyond the camp where animals had been killed privately
- When
- Israel encamped at Sinai, at the opening of the section commonly called the Holiness Code. c. 1445 BC, in the second year after the Exodus, on the traditional dating that follows the book's own setting
Historical context
The instruction is given to Moses and spoken to the whole nation rather than to the priesthood alone, which is the change that opens the second half of the book.
Israel is camped around one tent, so the entrance to the Tent of Meeting is within reach of every household, and a rule requiring every ox, lamb and goat to be brought there is workable in a way it would stop being once the nation spread across a land. Deuteronomy 12:15 and 12:20 to 24 later allow slaughter for food far from the sanctuary.
A first hearer knew what verse 7 was forbidding, because he had lived beside it. The Hebrew word is se'irim, hairy ones or goats, and Adam Clarke ties the practice to the goat worship Israel had known in Egypt. The law is written to stop something the camp was already doing.
He also knew that the language of verse 4, that blood will be imputed to that man, was the language Genesis 9:6 uses of murder, so killing an animal privately was being charged as a crime against God rather than as a lapse in procedure.
The prohibition on eating blood was older than Sinai. Genesis 9:4 had withheld blood from Noah before there was an altar or a priesthood, and this chapter is where that restriction is finally explained.
The hunter's case at verse 13 was the ordinary one for a man who caught game that could not be brought to an altar. He poured the blood out and covered it with earth, and a first hearer understood that as burying it where it fell.
Significance
Verse 5 turned every animal killed for meat into a peace offering, which put a priest and an altar inside the family meal and made the sanctuary part of ordinary eating.
Verse 11 gave the nation the reason behind sixteen chapters of blood applied to altars: the life of the flesh is in the blood, and God has given it on the altar to make atonement. Nothing else in Leviticus explains the system so directly.
The chapter also settled who the law reached. A foreigner living in the camp was held to the door of the tabernacle and to the blood, whatever else of Israel's law fell to him, which is the same terms Leviticus 16:29 had already set for the Day of Atonement.
Where the chapter sits
Leviticus 17 falls in The Holiness Code (chapters 17–26). ‘Ye shall be holy; for I the LORD your God am holy.’ Blood, sexual ethics, neighbor-love, feasts, jubilee, blessings and curses.
The blood of atonement. ‘The life of the flesh is in the blood’, the book's theological keynote in one verse.
Before it: Day of Atonement, chapters 16. After it: Vows and dedications, chapters 27.
The whole shape of Leviticus→The structure of this chapter
People2
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
One altar, one door, no field sacrifices
Chapter 16 was spoken to Moses for Aaron alone, and this one is spoken to Aaron, to his sons, and to all the children of Israel together. The holiness code that runs from here to chapter 26 opens by widening its audience, so what follows is laid on the whole nation and not on the priesthood only. The formula this is the thing which the LORD hath commanded gives the rule no ground beyond the command itself, which is how most of Leviticus argues.
Leviticus 17:1
“This chapter, in its immediate bearing on the daily life of the Israelites, stands as the first of four Lev. 17–20 which set forth practical duties, directing the Israelites to walk, not in the way of the pagan, but according to the ordinances of Yahweh.”
Every ox, lamb and goat killed in the camp or outside it has to come to the door of the tabernacle, and the man who kills one anywhere else has blood imputed to him. He hath shed blood is the language Genesis 9:6 uses of murder, so the life of the animal is held to belong to God and taking it privately is charged as a crime against him. Deuteronomy 12:15 and 12:20-24 later allow slaughter for food far from the sanctuary, which named commentators read as the release of a rule fitted to a nation camped around one tent.
Leviticus 17:3
“Every domesticated animal that was slain for food was a sort of peace-offering Lev 17:5. This law could only be kept as long as the children of Israel dwelt in their camp in the wilderness. The restriction was removed before they settled in the holy land, where their numbers and diffusion over the country would have rendered its strict observance impossible. See Deu 12:15-16, Deu 12:20-24. Lev 17:4 Blood shall be imputed unto that man - i. e. he has incurred guilt in shedding blood in an unlawful manner. Cut off - See Exo 31:14 note.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 17:3
“That killeth-Not for common use, for such beasts might be killed by any person or in any place but for sacrifice. In the camp, or out of the camp - That is, anywhere.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 17:4
“He hath shed blood - He shall be punished as a murderer. The reason is, because he shed that blood, which, though not man's blood, yet was precious, being sacred and appropriated to God, and typically the price by which men's lives were ransomed.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Verse 7 gives the reason the two verses before it withhold. Sacrifice in the open field was going to devils, and the Hebrew word there is se'irim, hairy ones or goats, which Adam Clarke ties to the goat worship Israel had lived beside in Egypt. The text calls it going a whoring, language it uses because the nation is held to be married to God, so a sacrifice laid on another power breaks a bond rather than misplaces a ritual. Verse 5 turns every animal killed for meat into a peace offering, which puts a priest and an altar inside the family meal.
Leviticus 17:6
“And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord,.... The altar of burnt: offering, Lev 1:5, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; near to which it stood, see Lev 1:5, and burn the fat for a sweet savour to the Lord; the fat that covered the inwards, the kidneys, the flanks and caul of the liver; see Lev 3:3.”
Leviticus 17:7
“They shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils - They shall not sacrifice לשעירים lasseirim, to the hairy ones, to goats. The famous heathen god, Pan, was represented as having the posteriors, horns, and ears of a goat; and the Mendesians, a people of Egypt, had a deity which they worshipped under this form. Herodotus says that all goats were worshipped in Egypt, but the he-goat particularly.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 17:7
“And as the Egyptians were notorious for their idolatry, so the Israelites were infected with their leaven, Josh. xxiv, 14, Ezek. xx, 7, xxiii, 2, 3. A whoring - Idolatry, especially in God's people, is commonly called whoredom, because it is a violation of that covenant by which they were peculiarly betrothed or married to God.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The same law binds the stranger that sojourneth among Israel, and this chapter says so five times in sixteen verses, at 8, 10, 12, 13 and 15. A foreigner living in the camp is held to the door of the tabernacle and to the blood, whatever else of Israel's law falls to him. Leviticus 16:29 had already put him under the day of atonement on the same terms as one of their own country.
Leviticus 17:8
“The strangers which sojourn - The foreigners who dwell. See Lev 16:29 note. Or sacrifice - i. e., a slaughtered offering of any kind, generally a peace-offering.”
The life of the flesh is in the blood
Verse 10 carries the only threat in the chapter that God executes in the first person, I will even set my face against that soul, with no court and no priest in between. Verse 11 gives the reason, and it is the one place in the Torah where the sacrificial system states its own ground: the life of the flesh is in the blood, God has given it upon the altar, and it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Genesis 9:4 had withheld blood from Noah before there was an altar or a priesthood, and this verse is where that restriction is finally explained. Hebrews 9:22 takes the sentence up as without shedding of blood is no remission.
Leviticus 17:10
“The prohibition to eat blood is repeated in seven places in the Pentateuch, but in this passage two distinct grounds are given for the prohibition: first, its own nature as the vital fluid; secondly, its consecration in sacrificial worship. Lev 17:11 Rather, For the soul of the flesh is in the blood; and I have ordained it for you upon the altar, to make atonement for your souls, for the blood it is which makes atonement by means of the soul.”
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 17:10
“The Zabians, or worshippers of the heavenly host, were accustomed, in sacrificing animals, to pour out the blood and eat a part of the flesh at the place where the blood was poured out (and sometimes the blood itself) believing that by means of it, friendship, brotherhood, and familiarity were contracted between the worshippers and the deities.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Leviticus 17:11
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood - This sentence, which contains a most important truth, had existed in the Mosaic writings for 3600 years before the attention of any philosopher was drawn to the subject. This is the more surprising, as the nations in which philosophy flourished were those which especially enjoyed the Divine oracles in their respective languages.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Leviticus 17:11
“Is in the blood - Depends upon the blood, is preserved and nourished by it. The blood maketh atonement - Typically, and in respect of the blood of Christ which it represented, by which the atonement is really made.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
ConnectionsHebrews 9:22
The prohibition is stated three times in five verses, at 10, 12 and 14, which is how Leviticus marks weight. Verse 13 covers the hunter, whose beast or fowl cannot go on the altar at all, and his blood is poured out and covered with dust, so it is buried where it fell. The Mishnah, compiled around 200 AD, gives that one act its own body of law in tractate Chullin as kisui ha-dam, the covering of the blood, and kosher slaughter keeps it still. Acts 15:20 and 15:29 carry the blood rule into the church's first council, which is worth saying plainly because a reader assumes every Levitical rule stopped.
Leviticus 17:12
“Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, no soul of you shall eat blood,.... Great or small as Jarchi observes, for the reason above given; which, though not expressed before, was the true reason of this law, which had been given before, and now repeated; see Lev 3:17, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood; any proselyte of righteousness; this is not observed before.”
Leviticus 17:14
“Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh - Independently of the moral reasons given above, we may add, 1. That blood, being highly alkalescent, especially in hot climates, is subject to speedy putrefaction. 2. That it affords a gross nutriment, being very difficult of digestion, so much so that bull’s blood was used in ancient times as poison, “Its extreme viscidity rendering it totally indigestible by the powers of the human stomach.” 3. It is allowed that when blood was used in this country in great quantities, the scurvy was more frequent than at other times.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Eating what died of itselfvv. 15-16
The chapter closes with the lightest penalty in it. A carcase that died of itself or was torn still holds its blood, so eating it defiles, and the remedy is washing the clothes, bathing, and uncleanness until the even. The heavier sentence falls on the man who refuses the washing, and of him the text says he shall bear his iniquity. Acts 15:20 sets things strangled beside blood in one clause, which is this case, and Ezekiel 44:31 lays the same rule on the priests by name.
Leviticus 17:15
“This law appears to be grounded on the fact that the body of an animal killed by a wild beast, or which has died of itself, still retains a great portion of its blood. The importance ascribed to this law in later times may be seen in 1Sa 14:32-35; Eze 4:14; Eze 44:31, and still more in the apostolic decision regarding “things strangled,” which are pointedly connected with blood Act 15:20.”
2 more voices on this verse
Leviticus 17:15
“And every soul that eateth that which died of itself,.... Through any disease upon it, or by means of any other creature seizing upon it and worrying it, or was not lawfully killed; if a man ate ever so little of it, even but the quantity of an olive, it was a breach of this law; which is connected with the preceding, there being a similarity between them, because such creatures must have their blood in them, not being regularly let out, and so eating of them would offend against the above law.”
Leviticus 17:15
“That eateth - Through ignorance or inadvertency; for if it was done knowingly, it was more severely punished. A stranger - Who is a proselyte to the Jewish religion: other strangers were allowed to eat such things, Deut. xiv, 21, out of which the blood was either not drawn at all, or not regularly.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Leviticus 17:16
“But if he wash them not,.... Neither wash his clothes: nor bathe his flesh; if he is negligent, and does not take care to make use of these ablutions: then he shall bear his iniquity; his guilt shall remain on him, and he shall suffer the punishment the law exposes him to, either by the hand of God, or the civil magistrate, which is due to persons that enter into the sanctuary in their uncleanness, or eat of holy things. For not washing his body the punishment was cutting off, and for not washing his garments, beating, as Jarchi says.”
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Andrew Bonar, A Commentary on Leviticus; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Sir Robert Anderson, Types in Hebrews.