Deuteronomy 14:3

14:1-21 Moses tells the people of Israel how God had given them three distinguishing privileges, which were their honour, and figures of those spiritual blessings in heavenly things, with which God has in Christ blessed us. Here is election; The Lord hath chosen thee. He did not choose them because they were by their own acts a peculiar people to him above other nations, but he chose them that they might be so by his grace; and thus were believers chosen, Eph 1:4. Here is adoption; Ye are the children of the Lord your God; not because God needed children, but because they were orphans, and needed a father. Every spiritual Israelite is indeed a child of God, a partaker of his nature and favour. Here is sanctification; Thou art a holy people. God's people are required to be holy, and if they are holy, they are indebted to the grace God which makes them so. Those whom God chooses to be his children, he will form to be a holy people, and zealous of good works. They must be careful to avoid every thing which might disgrace their profession, in the sight of those who watch for their halting. Our heavenly Father forbids nothing but for our welfare. Do thyself no harm; do not ruin thy health, thy reputation, thy domestic comforts, thy peace of mind. Especially do not murder thy soul. Do not be the vile slave of thy appetites and passions. Do not render all around thee miserable, and thyself wretched; but aim at that which is most excellent and useful.

Verse 3. - Any abominable thing. Any abomination, i . e . anything which is an abomination to the Lord, having been by him pronounced unclean and forbidden; "anything which I have put far away from you ( i.e. made to be abominable to you)" (Targum Jonath.). "Every creature of God is good," and "there is nothing unclean of itself" ( 1 Timothy 4:4 ; Romans 14:14 ); "but by the ordinance of God, certain creatures, meats, and drinks were made unclean to the Jews... and this taught them holiness in abstaining from the impure communion with the wicked" (Ainsworth). Deuteronomy 14:3

3 . Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing ] The same noun as abomination , Deuteronomy 7:25 , q.v. ; a term characteristic of D. The clause being also in the Sg. in a Pl. context (to which Sam., LXX have harmonised it) may be either the original law of D on this subject—cp. every abomination , Deuteronomy 12:31 —or, like Deuteronomy 14:2 , an addition by the deuteronomic editor. 3–20. Of Clean and Unclean Beasts, Fishes and Birds Paralleled with elaborations in H, Leviticus 11:2-23 (see introductory note above p. 183; and cp. the comparative table in Driver’s Deut. 157 ff.; the chief similarities and differences are noted in the notes below), and very summarily also in Leviticus 20:25 , H: ye shall separate between clean beast and unclean, and between unclean fowl and clean and shall not render your souls detestable (cp. Deuteronomy 7:26 , Deuteronomy 11:31 , Deuteronomy 12:11 ) by beast or fowl or anything wherewith the ground creepeth which I have separated from you as unclean .—In JE there is no parallel.—The references below to Tristram are to his Fauna and Flora of Western Palestine in the PEF Survey of W. Pal .; those to Doughty are to his Arabia Deserta . APPENDIXOn Clean And Unclean Animals ( Deuteronomy 14:3-20 ) First, some remarks are necessary on the form of the deuteronomic list.

While most of the names have been reasonably identified with animals still found in Palestine—the credit of this is largely due to Canon Tristram—yet full success in such identification is not, and may never be, possible. Especially precarious is the equation of the names with single species. The names are generic, not specific. They are popular. They give proofs of a close observation of the structure and habits of the animals. But the statement that the hare and the rock-badger chew the cud is not correct; though Arab hunters still assert this of the rock-badger (see on Deuteronomy 14:7 ), and indeed ‘both in hare and hyrax the peculiar munching movements, the backward and forward movements of the lower jaw, are so strongly suggestive of cud-chewing, that one rather admires the suggestion that they do chew the cud.’ Like that in Leviticus 11:2-23 the list in Deut. is not exhaustive. It details the clean mammals, both domestic and wild, but not the clean birds. It names the unclean birds, but not the unclean mammals except the camel, hare, and rock-badger, nor the reptiles nor the insects.