Deuteronomy. Day 53, Avoiding Unclean Pagan Foods

Chapter 14 contains a list of both unclean and clean foods (which were previously listed in Leviticus) and I believe Moses' intention in restating these rules is to give the Israelites a refresher course because their entry into the promised land is at hand. The original list was provided to the generation that came out of Egypt, for the Lord intended them to go up and begin taking the land within a couple of years after He gave them their freedom, but they rebelled when they heard there were fortified cities and men of giant stature in the land. Israel has now been out of Egypt forty years and Moses is speaking to the new generation---the generation that will be willing to charge ahead at the Lord's command---and it's important to speak the Lord's laws and commandments directly to them just as he did to their fathers who have since perished in the wilderness.

Just as the congregation was told in yesterday's passage to avoid pagan funeral practices, today they'll be told to avoid eating the unclean foods that pagans eat. The tribes that currently inhabit the promised land have eaten anything and everything; they've even drunk blood in their idolatrous religious festivals. Many of the foods these tribes have eaten have been scientifically proven by our day to cause a multitude of health problems. The Lord wants Israel healthy and strong. Avoiding the foods the Lord says are unclean will help the Israelites to avoid many of the ailments suffered by other tribes and nations.

This list contains a pretty even mix of clean and unclean foods, so it isn't a negative list by any means. It's not just a bunch of "don'ts" and in fact it begins with foods that the people are permitted to eat. I think a lot of the unbelievers of the world assume that to be a child of God means we have to observe a list of "don'ts" and that it's a restrictive and boring thing to be obedient to the Lord. Nothing could be further from the truth! What could be more exciting than knowing and serving the Creator of all things? What could be more empowering than knowing the Almighty loves us and fights for us? What could be better than knowing He has our best interests at heart and wants us to enjoy the things that are good for us and wants us to avoid the things that are bad for us? When the Lord says a thing is unclean, He's not trying to be a spoilsport and keep us from enjoying something that's fun. He's trying to keep us from getting sick or getting hurt. 

Let's begin the list now. "Do not eat any detestable thing. These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep. You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud." (Deuteronomy 14:3-6) No one is going to go hungry by avoiding unclean foods. The Lord isn't placing difficult or impossible restrictions on the people's diet; they only have to follow a simple rule here which is that if an animal has a divided hoof and also chews the cud, it is clean. Next we see some examples of animals that do not meet these qualifications. "However, of those that chew the cud or that have a divided hoof you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the hyrax. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you. The pig is also unclean; although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses." (Deuteronomy 14:7-8) I ate a bite of rabbit meat once without knowing it was rabbit. As the joke goes, it tasted like chicken, but once I knew it was rabbit I didn't eat a second bite. I am put off by wild game in general and prefer not to eat any of it, plus rabbits eat their own droppings. They process their food twice to get all the nutrients possible out of it but this is probably the main reason they are on the list of unclean foods. Animals who chew cud are, in a sense, processing their food twice but the cud has not passed through the bowels as a waste product and therefore the chewing of cud does not render an animal unclean. 

"Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales. But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean." (Deuteronomy 14:9-10) The rule about water animals is as simple as the rule about land animals. Two qualifications must be met: the animal must have both fins and scales. If the animal has fins but no scales, it is unclean. It if has scales but no fins, it is unclean. Things like shrimp, crabs, oysters, and lobsters are unclean. Catfish is unclean because it has fins but no scales. Tilapia, for example, is clean because it has both fins and scales. I have a fresh package of tilapia in my fridge right now to cook for supper tonight. I have eaten shrimp a number of times in the past but will probably not eat it again after reading about why shellfish are unclean. Shrimp are bottom feeders which means they eat waste products and parasites. They are high in cholesterol. If not cooked well enough they are far more likely to give us a foodborne illness than undercooked fish with fins and scales. Their digestive system is not capable of expelling harmful chemicals the way the digestive systems of clean water creatures do. That's why shellfish can contain high levels of mercury and other harmful substances that get into the water. The Lord forbade certain foods for good reasons. The ancient Israelites weren't medically advanced enough to know all the reasons why certain foods were bad for them but they were to trust that the Lord made these rules for their own good. Even in our day we might not fully understand exactly how the eating of certain meats affects our health but we can be sure any food the Lord considered unclean in the Old Testament is still unclean today. It's best to avoid it.

"All flying insects are unclean to you; do not eat them. But any winged creature that is clean you may eat." (Deuteronomy 14:19) Having wings doesn't always render a creature unclean unless the creature is an insect. Birds have wings and birds such as domesticated chickens, ducks, and geese are clean. They are not scavengers or birds of prey. Predatory and scavenger birds are not clean. Things like buzzards and vultures come to mind when we think of scavenger birds. Things such as hawks and eagles and vultures are examples of predatory birds. Nothing in these categories is to be eaten.

"Do not eat anything you find already dead." (Deuteronomy 14:21a) The reason for this rule is pretty obvious. The risk of illness is quite high when consuming an animal that has already begun to decompose or that has died of an unknown cause. It doesn't matter whether the dead animal was on the clean list or not. If a farmer goes out to his fields and sees that one of his cows has keeled over dead, he is not to butcher it for food. He has no idea what killed the cow or whether the illness is communicable to humans. Also he won't know exactly how long the animal has been dead; undercooking something that has begun the process of decomposition can cause food poisoning or transfer parasites to the digestive system of the person. This is why a man who finds one of his sheep torn apart by a wolf must not eat the sheep even though a sheep is a clean animal. Illness or parasites could have been transferred to the sheep by the wolf or the sheep might have been dead long enough for insects to have begun doing their job on the carcass. We've all seen flies on carcasses by the roadside and we know how quickly this process begins to take place on anything dead left out in the open. Clean animals can be rendered unclean by their manner of death and by things that take place with the carcass after death. 

The Israelites weren't to eat any animal found dead but other cultures didn't have such religious restrictions or personal scruples. If a foreigner had nothing against eating a sheep or cow that was found dead or that had been killed by predators, the animal could be given or sold to the foreigner for food. I'm assuming that the origin of the meat was made clear to the foreigner. I don't think the Israelites were passing off the food as having been slaughtered properly. "You may give it to the foreigner residing in any of your towns, and they may eat it, or you may sell it to any other foreigner. But you are a people holy to the Lord your God." (Deuteronomy 14: 21b)

We complete our segment with a rule that we saw earlier in Exodus 23:19 and Exodus 34:26. "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk." (Deuteronomy 14:21c) It's believed by many Bible scholars that this rule derived from a pagan ritual which the Israelites were not to imitate. The segments of Deuteronomy that we studied yesterday and today have to do with not imitating pagans in funeral rites or in foods, so the likelihood is high that the cooking of a baby goat in its mother's milk was something the heathens of Canaan did in some sort of idolatrous ceremony. It's also quite likely that the heathens cooked and ate the young goat whole without draining the blood, which is another practice forbidden by the Lord. 

Moses is reminding the Israelites that they are not to lower their standards once they arrive in the promised land. You've probably heard the expression, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Well, that's not the Lord's way. He's not saying, "When in Canaan, do as the heathens do." The Israelites are not to imitate people who don't know the Lord. They are to stand out from the crowd. They are to be different from every other nation on earth. They are the children of the Lord and that is to be evident in everything they do. The Lord is different from all the 'gods' of the nations and His people are to be different too. If His people aren't different, how will anyone look to them as examples of godly living and how will anyone feel compelled to ask them about the one true God? The same can be said of us today. If we behave just like the unbelieving world, how will anyone know we believe in the Lord? Why would anyone ask us about Him? Why would anyone have any desire to know Him if they don't find anything admirable in those of us who claim we already know Him? The Lord is holy and His children must be holy too. They must look like their Father or else unbelievers will conclude they don't belong to Him at all.