Deuteronomy 14.
BECAUSE they were children (it is literally “sons,” here) of the Lord their God, the people of Israel were not allowed to disfigure themselves. A holy people and a chosen people, they were to be for their God outwardly and inwardly. It was not, we see, in order to be His sons, that certain ways should be adopted, but because they were in that relationship.
Verses 3 to 20 correspond to what we have looked at in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, but there the words were given first to Moses and Aaron, and for them to pass on to the people, for Leviticus was the priest’s guide book. Deuteronomy is addressed directly to all the people, without distinction. And God here tells simply and plainly what was good for them, to eat, naming the different animals, with which the people were familiar. The creatures with names to us uncommon in the fifth verse, are different kinds of deer and wild goats and sheep. Suitable food was that which corresponded in character with the God-given character of His people. The parted hoof refers to a clean and firm walk, conscientious behavior suitable to a believer; the chewing of the cud is related to the effect of God’s Word on me inwardly. This truth is intended to have such a place in my life, that it will be a part of my very self, and be seen in the outward things that are suitable to a child of God.
So, as to fishes, what was according to divine order was food; in birds, those which cannot be tamed were rejected; and in creeping things, because they groveled on the earth, there was nothing of food. These all set before us what is or is not, suitable food for a Christian’s mind in reading and in associations.
Verse 21 marks again the difference between the child of God and the world; there are things which are not suitable in those who hear His name, and are therefore called to a holy, separate life but which might be accepted in the world where God is not honored. To eat a thing which died of itself would be, as another has said, the same in principle as for a Christian to join the world in its pleasures and amusements. He has something better than the poor dead things, of this world to feed upon, —the Living Bread from heaven, the Lord Jesus. But the unconverted know nothing of the most precious things the believer enjoys.
Yet another admonition is needed. “Thou shalt not seethe (boil) a kid in his mother’s milk.” Whatever is contrary to the order of what God has established, or is unbecoming, is forbidden.
Verse 23 brings us again to the question of meeting God in the place where He chooses to put His Name. To that place they were to bring all that was due to God, truly reckoned (verse 22). If the way were long, and the place far off, the Israelite might turn into money what he had to take, and exchange the money again at the chosen place of meeting, for there and there only was God to be met and communion enjoyed, rejoicing in the gracious gifts of the gracious Giver. Surely then there is a present-day counterpart of the earthly center of Israel, and the writer firmly believes it to be set out in the Lord Jesus’ impressive words,
“Where two or three are gathered together to My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20. And in many other passages of the New Testament which set out the ground, the Center, the power and the authority of gathering.
The Levite, without an earthly inheritance, was not to be forgotten; selfishness is natural to us; strangers, fatherless and widows were all to be remembered, that the blessing of God might rest on His people. The special tithe of verses 28, 29 is only found here, —nowhere else in scripture.