Leviticus 17:11 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Leviticus 17:11
For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct
flesh
הַבָּשָׂר֮ha.ba.Sar
H1320
flesh (from its freshness) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
blood
בַּדָּ֣םba.Dam
H1818
blood (as that which when shed causes death) of man or… · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
given
נְתַתִּ֤יוne.ta.Tiv
H5414
to give · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
altar
הַמִּזְבֵּ֔חַha.miz.Be.ach
H4196
an altar · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
atonement
לְכַפֵּ֖רle.kha.Per
H3722
to cover (specifically with bitumen) · preposition + verb, piel infinitive construct
souls
נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶ֑םnaf.sho.tei.Khem
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
blood
הַדָּ֥םha.Dam
H1818
blood (as that which when shed causes death) of man or… · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
atonement
יְכַפֵּֽרye.kha.Per
H3722
to cover (specifically with bitumen) · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
soul
בַּנֶּ֥פֶשׁba.Ne.fesh
H5315
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Hebrews 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us…
Romans 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are pas…
Revelation 1:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him t…
Mark 14:24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
Genesis 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Matthew 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Colossians 1:14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Leviticus 17:10–end
We have here, I. A repetition and confirmation of the law against eating blood. We have met with this prohibition twice before in the levitical law (Lev 3:17; Lev 7:26), besides the place it had in the precepts of Noah, Gen 9:4. But here, 1. The prohibition is repeated again and again, and reference had to the former laws to this purport (Lev 17:12): I said to the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood; and again (Lev 17:14), You shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh. A great stress is laid upon it, as a law which has more in it than at first view one would think. 2. It is made binding, not only on the house of Israel, but on the strangers that sojourned among them (Lev 17:10…
the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls--God, as the sovereign author and proprietor of nature, reserved the blood to Himself and allowed men only one use of it--in the way of sacrifices.
Adam Clarke on Leviticus 17:11
For the life of the flesh is in the blood - This sentence, which contains a most important truth, had existed in the Mosaic writings for 3600 years before the attention of any philosopher was drawn to the subject. This is the more surprising, as the nations in which philosophy flourished were those which especially enjoyed the Divine oracles in their respective languages. That the blood actually possesses a living principle, and that the life of the whole body is derived from it, is a doctrine of Divine revelation, and a doctrine which the observations and experiments of the most accurate anatomists have served strongly to confirm. The proper circulation of this important fluid through the w…
For the life of the flesh is in the blood,.... The animal life or soul, the life and soul of every creature, and even the animal life and soul of man; agreeably to which our famous Dr. Harvey, who found out the circulation of the blood, says of it, that it is the principal part which first appears in generation; is the genital part, the fountain of life the first that lives, and the last that dies; the primary seat of the soul or life, from whence motion and pulsation take their rise; in which the innate heat is produced the vital spirit is generated and the life consists (i); and therefore it is spread all over the body, and according to the condition that it is in, such is the health and s…
The Church Fathers
In the case of the human person: first its body is created from the dust, and afterward the power of life is given to it, and this is the being of the soul. Accordingly Moses said about the beasts, "Its blood is its life." But in the case of the human person its being is incorporeal and immortal and has a great superiority over the body, to the same extent as incorporeal form surpasses the corporeal.
The troubling utterance is the following: "The soul of all flesh is the blood" — behold an extremely difficult passage, which has shaken those who did not understand it! … According to my measure of understanding, and with prayer for help in the knowledge of the Divine utterances … I have observed that incorporeal things are given the same names as corporeal things, and thus corporeal things are related to the outer man, while those bearing the same names as the corporeal are related to the inner man. Scripture says that in man there are two. … Therefore in each of us there are two men. Why does the Holy Scripture say that the soul of all flesh is the blood? This is a difficult question. Just as the outer man is homonymous with the inner one, so also with respect to the parts of the body. One may say that each part of the body of the outer man is homonymous with the corresponding part of the inner man. … And so, everything that is in the sentient flesh you can find also in the inner man. Do not doubt, then, also concerning the blood, homonymous with the sentient blood, which, like the other parts of the body, the inner man has. It is precisely this blood of which the soul of the sinner is deprived.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Blood — (1.) As food, prohibited in Gen. 9:4, where the use of animal food is first allowed. Comp. Deut. 12:23; Lev. 3:17; 7:26; 17:10-14. The injunction to abstain from blood is renewed in the decree of the…
Atonement · MA — MA
Atonement, The · Typified — Typified
Blood · Is the life — Is the life
Pardon · None without shedding of blood — None without shedding of blood
Sanitation · FOOD — FOOD
Strangers In Israel · Laws respecting: Not to eat blood — Laws respecting: Not to eat blood
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Leviticus 17:10-14
10. And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.
10. Quicunque e domo Israel, et e peregrinis qui peregrinantur in medio eorum, comederit ullum sanguinem, ponam faciem meam in animam quae comederit sanguinem, et excidam eam e medio populi sui.
11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
11. Quia anima carnis in sanguine est: ego autem dedi ill…
To this there are appended three laws, which are kindred in their nature, and which were binding not only upon the Israelites, but also upon the foreigners who dwelt in the midst of them.
Lev 17:8-12
Lev 17:8, Lev 17:9 contain the command, that whoever offered a burnt-offering of slain-offering, and did not bring it to the tabernacle to prepare it for Jehovah there, was to be exterminated; a command which involved the prohibition of sacrifice in any other place whatever, and was given, as the further extension of this law in Deut 12 clearly proves, for the purpose of suppressing the disposition to offer sacrifice to other gods, as well as in other places. In Lev 17:10-14 the prohibition of t…
the life of the body is in its blood: Israel was forbidden to consume blood (17:10) because it was symbolic of the life given by God and was reserved as God’s portion of each animal offering. God had also designated the sacrificial blood as the means of atonement. In other words, God’s grace permitted the life of the animal to be accepted in exchange for the life of the sinner. In the New Testament, the blood of Christ—representing his life freely given—has provided eternal redemption for believers (Heb 9:12).
Rashi on Leviticus 17:11
כי נפש הבשר FOR THE LIFE OF THE FLESH of every creature, not only of animals brought as sacrifices, is dependent on its blood (בדם היא), and it is for this reason that I have placed it [on the altar] to make expiation for the life of man: let life come and expiate for life!
