Deuteronomy 14:21

Deu 14:21 Ye shall not eat [of] any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that [is] in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

Ver. 21. Thou shalt not seethe,] {See Trapp on "Exo 23:19"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Deu_14:21

Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mothers milk.

Cultivation of the feelings a Christian duty

I. That which commentators upon Scripture have found intricate and uncertain, writers of a more secular character have seized upon and read rightly. Some of you may remember the use made of it in one of those classical works of fiction of which Englishmen are so justly proud; where the intended victim of a deep-laid plot is lured to her destruction by an imitation of her husbands signal, and one of the conspirators says to his more guilty accomplice, Thou hast destroyed her by means of her best affections. It is a seething of the kid in the mothers milk! A just and thrilling application of the inspired charge; of which the simplest meaning is the true one. Thou shalt not blunt thy natural feelings, or those of others, by disregarding the inward dictate of a Divine humanity: human nature shrinks from the idea of using that which ought to be the food of a newborn animal, to prepare that animal to be mans food; of applying the mothers milk to a purpose so opposite to that for which God destined it: harden not thy heart against this instinct of tenderness on the plea that it matters not to the slain animal in what particular way it is dressed, or that the living parent, void of reason, has no consciousness of the inhumanity: for thine own sake refrain from that which is hardhearted; from that which, though it inflicts not pain, springs out of selfishness, indicates a spirit unworthy of man and forgetful of God, and tends still further to blunt those moral sensibilities which once lost are commonly lost forever, and with them all that is most beautiful and most attractive in the human character.

II. The text seems to teach us most of all the wickedness of using for selfish or wrong purposes the sacred feelings of another; of availing ourselves of the knowledge of anothers affections to make him miserable or to make him sinful; of trifling, in this sense, with the most delicate workings of the human mechanism, and turning to evil account that insight into character with which God has endowed us all, in different degrees, for purposes wholly beneficent, pure, and good.

III. In proportion as you learn and practise early that regard for others feelings which is almost synonymous with Christian charity, in that same degree will you become, not effeminate, but in the best of all senses manly; having put away childish things, and anticipated the noblest qualities of a Christian maturity. We pray in the Litany, From hardness of heart, good Lord, deliver us. Hardness of heart has two aspects; towards man, and towards God. Towards God it is brought about by acts of neglect, leading to habits of neglect; by a disregard of His word and commandments, issuing in what is called in the same petition, a contempt of both. Towards man, it is produced in us in a similar way; by repeated acts of disregard, leading to a habit of disregard; by blinding ourselves to others feelings, and saying and doing every day things which wound them, till at last we become unconscious of their very existence, and think nothing real which is not, in some manner, our own. That is hardness of heart in its full growth; selfishness unrestrained and unlimited. Many people are walking about in that state; with a heart hardened utterly both towards man and towards God. And they pass for respectable men too: in them religion and charity, worship and almsgiving, have become alike workings of selfishness regulated by calculations of self-interest, and never looking beyond earth for their reward. That you may not become thus seared, you must watch and pray, while you can, against hardness of heart. You must practise its opposite. Try to think more than you do of others, and less than you do of yourselves. Enter into the feelings one of another. Think not only what is your right, or what you can get, or what you are used to, in such and such a matter; but also what others would like, what would give pleasure, what would make their life happy, in small things or great; and sometimes do that; form the habit of doing that. (Dean Vaughan.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Deu 14:21. Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself — The blood being in it, rendered it unlawful to be eaten. Proselytes of the gate, not being obliged to observe these laws, or mere Gentiles, who might happen to be in their country, might eat such meat. But those who were termed proselytes of righteousness, that is, circumcised Gentiles, who had embraced the Jewish religion, were bound to abstain from such food as much as the native Jews.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14:21 Animals that had died a natural death were considered unclean (even if considered clean while living) because they had not been slaughtered according to ritual protocol and their blood had not been properly drained and disposed of (see 12:23-25). • You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk: A common explanation for why this pagan practice was improper is that it displayed insensitivity to the natural feelings of affection and trust between mothers and their offspring (see 28:56-57).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Which is not of thy religion.

Because their blood was not shed, but remaineth in them.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself--(See on Lev 17:15; Lev 22:8).

thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates--not a proselyte, for he, as well as an Israelite, was subject to this law; but a heathen traveller or sojourner.

Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk--This is the third place in which the prohibition is repeated [Exo 23:19; Exo 34:26]. It was pointed against an annual pagan ceremony (see on Exo 23:19; Exo 34:26).

[Deu 14:22-29. LAW OF THE TITHE].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 21. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.] Mr. Calmet thinks that this precept refers to the paschal lamb only, which was not to be offered to God till it was weaned from its mother; but See Clarke on Ex 23:19.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(21) That he may eat it.—Literally, and he will eat it. The common practice, and not the intention of the writer, may be indicated. It should be remembered that these rules and restrictions were intended to raise the Israelites above the common level; not to degrade the other nations in comparison of them. Strangers were not compelled to eat what Israel refused; they were left free to please themselves.

Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.—This is the last appearance of a command repeated twice in Exodus (Exo_23:19; Exo_34:26). See Notes there.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

21. Ye shall not eat of any thing which dieth of itself] Lit. any carcase, anything found dead, without being slain by the finder. There is a possible case in Doughty, ii. 129; but usually when an Arab sees his camel must die, in consequence of an accident, he slays it forthwith.

thou mayest give it unto the stranger] The gçr or foreigner settled in Israel (see on Deu_1:16), distinct from the following foreigner, not settled, but trading, with Israel.

E, Exo_22:30 (31) enjoins that flesh torn of beasts shall be given to dogs; but H, Lev_17:15, enjoins that neither that which dies of itself nor what is torn of beasts shall be eaten either by Israelite or by gêr: obviously a later law, when the position of the gêr was more established in Israel and he was brought further into religious communion.

for thou art an holy people] As in Deu_14:2.

See further on Unclean and Clean Foods, Appendix I.

Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk] So E, Exo_23:19, and J, Exo_34:26. The prohibition has a natural seemliness like those laws in H, Lev_22:27 f., which forbid the sacrifice of a calf, lamb, or kid till it has been seven days under the dam, and the sacrifice of the dam and young together[134]. But there must be other motives behind the law. That it occurs among laws on ritual implies that the practice it vetoes had a sacramental meaning (as Calvin on Exo_33:19 points out); that both in E and J it immediately follows the offering of first-fruits suggests that this meaning was connected with the security of the harvest or of the fertility of the soil: ‘a superstitious usage of some of the Gentiles, who, ’tis said, at the end of their harvest seethed a kid in its dam’s milk, and sprinkled that milk pottage in a magical way upon their gardens and fields to make them the more fruitful the next year[135].’

[134] Some have even supposed that it was meant to exclude kids from use as food till they were weaned, which is neither ‘agreeable to reason’ (Calvin) nor to H’s law quoted above.

[135] M. Henry on Exo_23:19. He may have got this from Maimonides through Bochart, or through Spencer whose Leges Hebraeorum was published some years before his own commentary. W. R. Smith (Ret. Sem. 204 n.) suggests that as certain primitive peoples appear to regard milk as equivalent to blood, the seething of a kid in its mother’s milk would involve the partakers of the flesh in the guilt of ‘eating with the blood.’ Calvin had made the same suggestion with a more apposite emphasis: ‘God would not admit a monstrous thing in His sacrifice, that a kid’s flesh should be cooked in its dam’s milk, and thus, as it were, in its own blood.’—From its wording this law cannot mean the prohibition of any milk in sacrifice (to-day in Arabia sheep and goats are said to taste better when boiled in milk, Musil, Ethn. Ber. 149, and are frequently so cooked), yet it is significant that milk nowhere appears among the festal offerings of Israel, probably because of its ready fermentation (W. R. Smith).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And if the way be too long for thee,.... The way from the place where any Israelite might live:

to carry it; the tithe and the firstlings, it would be too expensive or too troublesome in any way that could be devised:

or if the place shall be too far from thee, which the Lord thy God shall choose to set his name there; which by the event appeared to be the city of Jerusalem, and this from some parts of the land of Canaan was very distant:

when the Lord thy God hath blessed thee; with a large increase of the fruits of the earth, and of flocks and herds.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Of itself, or by suffocation. --- Stranger, who has not embraced your religion. (Menochius) --- Hence it is inferred, that the Jews might keep unclean animals, and sell them; as they did not defile till they were dead. (Jansenius) --- If they had been unclean by nature, they could not have been sold, which shews that this ceremonial law regarded only the Jewish religion. --- Dam. All appearance of cruelty must be avoided. Christ, who is signified by the kid, on account of his assuming our sinful nature, shall not be slain in his infancy. (St. Thomas Aquinas, [Summa Theologiae] 2. q. 102. a. 6.) (Worthington). --- Some take this prohibition literally, and extend it to calves and lambs. The Arabs use milk in almost all their ragouts. (Roger. ii. 2.) --- Others think that kids must not be eaten while they are as yet too tender, Qui plus lactis habet quam sanguinis. (Juvenal, Sat. xi.) --- But we believe that God forbids the paschal lamb or kid to be offered while it sucks. It must be of a competent age, of one year, Exodus xii. 5., and xxiii. 19. Other victims would do if they were only eight days old, Leviticus xxii. 27. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Unto the stranger; not to the proselyte, for such were obliged by this law, Lev 17:15, but to such as were strangers in religion as well as in nation.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

21. Not eat… that dieth of itself — See Exo_22:31, and Lev_22:8.

Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk — See Exo_23:19.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

cf. Lev_17:15 Exo_23:19 Exo_34:26. The stranger that is in thy gates. "The uncircumcised stranger that is in thy cities" (Targum), i.e. "a heathen who takes upon him that he will serve no idol, with the residue of the commandments which were commanded to the sons of Noah, but is not circumcised nor baptized (Maimonides, "Issure Biah," Deuteronomy 14. (Ainsworth). Alien; a foreigner, one not resident in the land of Israel.

Seething a kid in its mother"s milk.

This precept, several times repeated in the Law, (Exo_23:16 Exo_34:25) may be connected with magical superstitions, but it is equally probable that the act was condemned as an outrage on the connection naturally subsisting between parent and offspring. It is thus related to the commands forbidding the killing of a cow and a calf on the same day, (Lev_22:28) or the taking a bird with its young, (Deu_22:6) and to the precepts enjoining a scrupulous regard for natural distinctions not sowing a field with mingled seed, etc.. (Lev_19:19) It suggests

I THE DUTY OF CHERISHING THE FINER INSTINCTS OF OUR NATURE. The act here forbidden could hardly be called cruelty, the kid being dead, but it was unnatural. It argued a blunted state of the sympathies. A finer instinct, alive to the tenderness of the relation between parent and offspring, would have disallowed it. It is beautiful to see the ancient Law inculcating this rare and delicate fineness of feeling this considerateness and sympathy even for dead animals. The lesson is that everything is to be avoided which would tend to blunt our moral sensibilities. The act has its analogue in higher relations. Not infrequently has the affection of a parent been used by the ingenuity of cruelty to inflict keener tortures on a child; or, conversely, a child has been betrayed into disclosures afterwards used to injure the parent.

II THE DUTY OF CONSIDERATION IN DEALING WITH IRRATIONAL CREATURES.

1. It is right that irrational creatures should be treated kindly. And if the Law required that this delicate consideration should be shown towards dead animals, how much more does it require of us kindly treatment of them while living!

2. Our behavior towards irrational creatures, as seen above, reacts upon ourselves. In certain cases, this is readily perceived. Most people would shrink from the wanton mutilation of a dead animal, even in sport, and would admit the reactive effect of such an action in deadening humane instincts in him who did it. But it is the same with all cruelty and unfeelingness. Any action which, in human relationships, would be condemned as unsympathetic, will be found, if performed to animals, to have a blunting effect on the sensibilities of the agent. A man"s dog is more to him than a brute. He is a friend. We can carry into our behavior towards the irrational creatures many of the feelings which actuate us in our personal relations, and the more we do it, the better for ourselves. J.O.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

General Information:

Moses continues speaking to the people of Israel.

anything that dies of itself

This means an animal that dies a natural death.

For you are a nation that is set apart to Yahweh your God

Yahweh choosing the people of Israel to belong to him in a special way is spoken of as if Yahweh set them apart from all other nations. This can be stated in active form. AT: "For Yahweh your God has set you apart from other nations" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)

translationWords

die

alien

gate

set apart

Yahweh

God

goat

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

לגר אשר בשעריך [YE SHALL NOT EAT ANY CARRION: THOU SHALT GIVE IT] UNTO THE STRANGER THAT IS IN THY GATES — i.e. unto a stranger that is a sojourner (גר תושב) — one who has undertaken not to worship idols (i.e. one who has been converted to the fundamental tenet of Judaism) but who eats carrion (does not obey the other teachings of the Torah) (Sifrei Devarim 104:2; cf. Rashi on Leviticus 25:35).

כי עם קדוש אתה לה׳ FOR THOU ART AN HOLY PEOPLE UNTO THE LORD — This implies: show yourself holy (abstinent) in respect to things which are permitted to you — i.e. things that are actually permitted but which some treat as forbidden you should not treat as permissible in their presence (Sifrei Devarim 104:7).

לא תבשל גדי THOU SHALT NOT SEETHE A KID [IN ITS MOTHER’S MILK] — Three times the prohibition of seething meat in milk is mentioned in the Torah (here, and in Exodus 23:19 and Exodus 34:26) and each time in the form: “thou shalt not seethe a kid” thus excluding three species: a wild beast, fowls and unclean beasts from the prohibition (Sifrei Devarim 104:8; Chullin 113a).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

FOR THOU ART A HOLY PEOPLE UNTO THE ETERNAL THY G-D. The purport thereof is connected with [the following prohibition], Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk. Although it is not an abhorrent food [for both meat and milk are permitted separately] He prohibited it because we are to be holy in [choice of] foods — or because we [ourselves] are holy — that we not become a cruel people that is not compassionate by milking the mother and extracting its milk to seethe therein its kid. And although any meat [cooked] in milk is included in this prohibition [even though it is not its own mother’s milk, a situation without apparent cruelty, nevertheless it is forbidden] because any nursing animal is called “mother” and any suckling offspring is called “kid,” and if they are together in the process of cooking there is [an element of] cruelty in all [cases whether a kid in its own mother’s milk or not].Now, Rashi wrote: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk. This is stated three times in order to exclude a wild beast, fowls, (clean wild beast) or fowl with milk is forbidden though by the Rabbis (Yoreh Deiah 57:3). and unclean animals” [from this prohibition]. This interpretation is derived from the Scriptural use of the term kid [an expression that does not apply to any of the excluded categories]. However, the thrice repeated] prohibition itself [teaches the following:] one forbids eating [meat cooked with milk], one forbids deriving benefit from it, and one forbids cooking it. And so did the Rabbi [Rashi] write in the section of And these are the ordinances.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.