These are the beasts which ye shall eat the ox, the sheep, and the goat;
Before naming a single animal, Moses points to who Israel already was: God's children, set apart to Him. So why did God care what His people ate, and what do these three farm animals show us?
One writer points out that God never told Israel to make itself a holy people:
"You are a holy people to the Lord your God." He does not say, "You ought to be a holy people." How could they ever make themselves a holy people, or a people set apart to Jehovah? Utterly impossible. If they were not His people, no effort of theirs could ever make them such. But God, in His sovereign grace, keeping His covenant with their fathers, had made them His children... All their habits and customs, all their doings and ways, their food and their clothing, what they did and what they did not do — all was to flow out of one great fact. They had no more to do with that fact than with their natural birth: they actually were the children of God.
Deuteronomy is not just repeating an earlier list. The change is in who receives the rules:
From verse 3 to 20, we have the law about clean and unclean beasts, fish and birds. Its leading principles already came before us in Leviticus 11, but there is one very important difference. In Leviticus, God gives the instructions first of all to Moses and Aaron. In Deuteronomy He gives them directly to the people... Leviticus may be specially called the priest's guide book. In Deuteronomy the priests are almost entirely in the background, and the people are prominent.
Why these animals and not others? A clean animal had to pass two tests:
The difference between clean and unclean animals was known before the flood (Genesis 7:2). Here, however, the Lord gives marks for the first time by which to tell them apart. In Deuteronomy 14:4-5 Moses, at God's command, names the beasts that were clean. The distinguishing marks were two: one related to their habit, the other to something that marked their walk. The habit was chewing the cud. The mark in their walk was that they parted the hoof, and were cloven footed... Such included those of the herd, or of the flock, from which alone sacrificial victims could be chosen. They also included the hart, the roebuck or gazelle, and fallow deer...
Not every clean animal could go on the altar. One writer explains the difference:
A wild animal (for example a lion or a wolf) was never brought as a sacrifice to God. The reason is that the picture is not of the fallen nature of man, but of the perfect Manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the animals were to be of the herd, or of the flock. These were domesticated animals, brought under the will of man, just as the Son of God moved through this world subject to the will of God. The law counted other animals clean too, such as the roebuck and the hart (Deuteronomy 12:15). But they were not domesticated, so they could never be offered to God. They were clean, and God said, "you may kill and eat them in your gates." But the Israelites were never to bring and offer them in God's gates.
The two marks carry a lesson beyond diet:
The chewing of the cud expresses the natural process of "inwardly digesting" what one eats, while the divided hoof sets out the character of one's outward walk. There is, as we know, a close connection between the two in the Christian life. Think of the one who feeds on the green pastures of the Word of God and inwardly digests what he takes in. He is able to combine calm meditation with prayerful study. He will, without doubt, show an outward walk that praises Him. God has graciously given us His word to shape our habits and govern our ways.
These rules later raised hard questions for Christians:
The first 21 verses of Deuteronomy 14 stress that Israel as a nation were a people specially set apart to God... Many centuries later, non-Jewish believers soon outnumbered Jewish believers in Christian circles. These restrictions then gave rise to the "doubtful disputations" that Romans 14 speaks of. In that chapter the Spirit of God does not lay down a rule. He leaves each person to settle in his own mind what he should do. We may usefully transfer the thought to what we may mentally read and inwardly digest. Let us take care that we do not feed mentally on what is impure.
- Given — Israel did not eat their way into holiness. God had already made them His own, and their food flowed from that.
- Addressed — Leviticus gave the food laws to the priests. Deuteronomy gives them to every Israelite, so holiness reached the family table.
- Tested — A clean animal had to both chew the cud and part the hoof; either mark alone left it unclean.
- Pictured — The cud stands for digesting God's Word; the hoof, for the walk that follows. So take care what you feed your mind on.
- Offered — The ox, sheep and goat could go on the altar because they lived under man's will. They picture the Son of God, who lived under the will of God. Other clean animals could be eaten, but never offered.
the hart, and the gazelle, and the stag, and the wild goat, and the dishon and the oryx, and the wild sheep.
Deuteronomy 14:5 ends a short list of wild animals Israel was allowed to eat. The chapter opens by calling the nation the children of the Lord their God, so why does a food list say who they are, and what marks does God look for?
Leviticus gave these food laws first. Deuteronomy repeats them, and this time the whole nation hears, with a longer list of allowed animals.
Because God had chosen them to be a people specially His own, above all the other nations, they were to be a holy people... In Leviticus the laws about what Israel could eat and must avoid came to Moses and Aaron. In Deuteronomy the whole congregation hears these instructions. Deuteronomy also names many animals which we do not find in Leviticus. So Deuteronomy stresses their separation once more. They belonged to a holy Lord and were to be a holy people.
Another writer reads the chapter the same way, as belonging to the family relationship stated in the opening verses.
Chapter 14 forbids that the people, as being the children of the living God, should imitate the profane customs which indicated the devotedness of idolaters to the impure beings they worshipped. God had chosen Israel for Himself. Neither were they to defile themselves by eating abominable things. They were a holy people.
Leviticus gave the test. Here Moses names the creatures that pass it.
The distinction between clean and unclean animals was known before the flood (Gen. 7:2). Here, for the first time, the Lord gives the marks that tell them apart. In Deut. 14:4-5 Moses, at God's command, names the beasts that were clean... These included the herd and the flock, the only animals Israel could choose as sacrificial victims. They also included the hart, the roebuck or gazelle, the fallow deer, the wild goat, the pygarg or antelope, the wild ox or onyx, the chamois, or perhaps mountain sheep. Of these the hart, roebuck, and fallow deer appeared daily on Solomon's table (1 Kings 4:23). The rest are not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament.
Some of these names are hard to pin down today. Commentators differ over the last animal in the verse.
The Hebrew word is zemer, Deut. 14:5, which is held to mean 'leaper,' and would suit the chamois; but this animal is not found in Palestine, and people think it never lived there. Some suggest the animal meant is the aoudad, the mountain sheep; others judge that it means the wild goat.
Every animal on this list shared two features: it chewed the cud and had a split hoof. One describes what happens inside the animal; the other, how it moves.
What, then, are we to learn from those two features in a clean animal? The chewing of the cud pictures the natural process of "inwardly digesting" what one eats. The divided hoof pictures the character of one's outward walk. There is, as we know, an intimate connection between the two in the Christian life. Take the one who feeds on the green pastures of the Word of God and digests within what he takes in. He is able to combine calm meditation with prayerful study. He will without doubt show the outward walk that praises Him. God has graciously given us His word to form our habits and govern our ways.
A second writer finds the first mark in a word we still use, and both marks in what Habakkuk wrote.
We call animals that chew the cud "ruminants," and the word "ruminate" has gained "meditate" as a second meaning. The animals with cloven hoof are sure-footed and also in many cases light-footed. When Habakkuk wrote, "The Lord God... will make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk upon my high places," he seemed to indicate both these ideas. If we hide the word of God in our hearts by meditation, and if it shapes our outward walk in this way, our way will be clean in the sight of God.
One mark without the other left an animal unclean. The same test cuts both ways for us.
A man may claim to love and feed on the Word of God, the pasture of the soul — to study it and chew it over. But if his footprints along the path of life are not what the Word calls for, he is not clean. On the other hand, a man may look blameless and correct in his walk. But if his walk does not come from the hidden life, it is worse than worthless.
The dietary rule has passed, but what a person takes in still shapes what a person becomes.
The distinctions insisted on here have passed away as letter. As spirit they remain, and we must hold to them. If only we were always careful about what we feed on, and saw more clearly that we become like whatever we take in. But in art and in literature, even for the Christian, genius is allowed to gild vice and beautiful style to dress up error. So virtue in rough clothing is despised, and evil in a fine coat is welcomed.
- Chosen — the chapter starts with who Israel already was: children of the Lord, chosen to be His own holy people.
- Listed — Deuteronomy names clean animals Leviticus left out, and this time the whole nation hears the call to be separate.
- Marked — the deer, gazelle and mountain sheep here share two marks: they chew the cud and split the hoof.
- Paired — feeding on the Word inside and walking rightly outside belong together. One without the other fails the test.
- Formed — the rule about food has passed, but the principle stands, because what we take in is what we become.