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…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Leviticus 17:11
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…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Leviticus 17:12
Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, no soul of you shall eat blood,.... Great or small as Jarchi observes, for the reason above given; which, though not expressed before, was the true reason of this law, which had been given before, and now repeated; see Leviticus 3:17,
neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood; any proselyte of righteousness; this is not observed before.
