Friday, November 29, 2019

Leviticu 3:6-17 comments: neither fat nor blood


3:6 ¶  And if his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering unto the LORD be of the flock; male or female, he shall offer it without blemish. 7  If he offer a lamb for his offering, then
shall he offer it before the LORD. 8  And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron’s sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar. 9  And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall he take off hard by the backbone; and the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, 10  And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away. 11  And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire unto the LORD. 12  And if his offering be a goat, then he shall offer it before the LORD. 13  And he shall lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about. 14  And he shall offer thereof his offering, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards, 15  And the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away. 16  And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD’S. 17  It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.

The fat is a food offering to the Lord. Elsewhere it is called the bread of God (Leviticus 21:8, 22; Numbers 28:2) as some commentators interpret the passages.

The heathen in the ancient world practiced drink offerings with blood.

Psalm 16:4  Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.

While the religions of Canaan are gone today in the form they were in when Israel entered into the Promised Land we can look at Hinduism as a mirror of the ancient religious world. The practice of sacrifice is fundamental to Hinduism. It is called yajna. The gods that supposedly demand blood sacrifices are considered fierce and angry. Among these is Kali who was the inspiration for the famous and controversial Thuggee bandits from whom we get the word, Thug. It is possible that they were mere inventions of the British Colonial regime in India in their later incarnation but they are mentioned in medieval writings as early as the 1300s although they may have been ordinary thieves then.

It is clear that in the practice of animal sacrifice God wanted His worship with animals as representatives of Himself as the Christ to come to be specific and separate from the heathen around Canaan. God was pleased with animal sacrifice from the time of Abel as an example of His own blood offering to Himself for man’s rebellion but Satan counterfeited these practices in his religions as he did so many things in trying to divert God’s plan for reconciling mankind to Himself.

It is forbidden to eat or drink blood before, during, and after the Law given to Moses.

Before;

Genesis 9:4   But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

Here, in verse 17, under the Law. And then, when we are no longer justified by the Law.

Acts 15:19  Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: 20  But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.

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