Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Life of the Flesh Is in the Blood
Leviticus 17:1-16
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, · WEB
All slaughter is brought to one door to stop sacrifice in the fields, and the book states why blood atones.
The chapter opens with a requirement that looks impractical and has a clear purpose. Any Israelite who kills an ox, lamb or goat must bring it to the door of the Tent of Meeting Leviticus 17:4.
The reason is given two verses later, and it is not about butchery: they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat idols, after which they play the prostitute Leviticus 17:7. Killing an animal in the open field, away from any supervision, was how private sacrifice to other powers happened. Centralizing the slaughter closed the loophole.
The legislation was later relaxed when the people were spread across a country Deuteronomy 12:15. In a camp arranged around a single tent, it cost nobody anything.
Then the prohibition on blood, stated more absolutely than anywhere else and extended to the strangers who live as foreigners among them Leviticus 17:10.
And then the verse the whole sacrificial system rests on.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood. I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life Leviticus 17:11.
Three claims are packed into it.
The first is a statement about what blood is. It stands for life — the whole reason it may not be eaten is that it carries something that belongs to God, not that it is unclean. The prohibition is a mark of respect for life rather than disgust at it.
The second is that atonement works by reason of the life. What is offered is not the animal's suffering or its death considered by itself, but a life given in place of a life forfeited.
The third is the one most easily passed over: I have given it to you on the altar. The arrangement is a gift. Nothing in this book presents sacrifice as a human idea for placating God, or as a price he demanded and men had to find. He provided the means of approach and then told them where to bring it.
The closing rule requires anyone who eats an animal found dead to wash and be unclean until evening Leviticus 17:15 — because such a carcass has not been drained, and the blood was never poured out.
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