THE COVENANT PROHIBITION AGAINST CONSUMING
FAT, FLESH OR BLOOD
This covenant restriction will be repeated 7 times in 5 Scripture passages:
| Genesis 9:4-5 | "..with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it." |
| Leviticus 3:17 | "This is a perpetual law for all your descendants, wherever you may live: that you will not eat either fat or blood." |
| Leviticus 7:25-26 | "Anyone who eats the fat of an animal offered as food burnt for Yahweh will be outlawed from his people. Wherever you live, you will never eat blood, whether it be of bird or of beast. Anyone who eats any blood will be outlawed [literally "cut-off" meaning "dead"] from his people." |
| Leviticus 17:10-12 | "If any member of the House of Israel or any resident alien consumes blood of any kind, I shall set my face against that individual who consumes blood and shall outlaw him from his people. For the life of the creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you for performing the rite of expiation [atonement] on the altar for your lives, for blood is what expiates for a life. That is why I told the Israelites: None of you will consume blood, nor will any resident alien consume blood." |
| Leviticus 17:14 | "You will not consume the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood, and anyone who consumes it will be outlawed [cut off]." |
| Deuteronomy 12:16 | "You will not however eat the blood, but will pour that like water on the ground." |
| Deuteronomy 12:23-28 | "Take care, however, not to eat the blood, since blood is life, and you must not eat the life with the meat. [...]. The burnt offerings of meat and blood must be presented on the altar of Yahweh your God' whereas in your sacrifices, the blood must be poured on the altar of Yahweh your God; the meat you yourselves may eat." |
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2000 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.
This covenant restriction is to be in effect for all generations. The penalty for anyone who refuses to obey this Covenant restriction is that the one who eats raw flesh or who consumes blood is to be "cut off" or excommunicated from the Covenant people-he will be "dead" to the community. The blood is the link to liturgical worship and the forgiveness of sins. The inspired writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews defines the necessity of this requirement in Hebrews 9:18-22 concerning the blood sacrifices of what will be the continuation and transformation of Yahweh's Covenant at Mount Sinai, "That is why even the earlier covenant was inaugurated with blood, and why, after Moses had promulgated all the commandments of the Law to the people, he took the calves' blood, the goats' blood and some water, and with these he sprinkled the book itself and all the people, using scarlet wool and hyssop: saying as he did so: 'This is the blood of the covenant that God has made with you.' And he sprinkled both the tent and all the liturgical vessels with blood in the same way. In fact, according to the Law, practically every purification takes place by means of blood; and if there is no shedding of blood, there is no remission." This is the key to understanding the sacrificial system established by Yahweh in covenant with mankind: without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins!