for the soul of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul.
The command in this chapter is stern: Israel must never eat blood, and anyone who does is cut off from the people. The reason God gives reaches far beyond diet. It tells us what blood means, why He claims it, and how it covers a guilty person.
Scripture defines its own symbol. Two verses set side by side settle what blood stands for. (Older translations end this verse with "makes atonement for the soul," where the ESV has "makes atonement by the life.")
Deuteronomy 12:23 tells us that "the blood is the life." Leviticus 17:11 says "the life of the flesh is in the blood." These two passages make clear what blood means in Scripture. The second verse ends with the words: "It is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul."
Some have claimed that the blood on the altar carries life still living in it.
The blood is the life of the body, and so represents it, and anyone who ate blood would be cut off — not merely "fresh, steaming blood," as these views would suppose, but blood in any way. So the blood poured out is the life poured out — the symbol of death, not of existing life.
The ban is not random. It keeps three truths in front of the people, and it points ahead to Christ.
Life belongs to God, so no one of the human race was to eat blood. The sinner, too, has forfeited his life, and can live before God only because a sacrifice dies in his place. Israel was always to remember this… When the blood is shed, the life is given up to God, and that is precious to Him. No wonder, then, that the shedding of blood was such an essential part of the ritual God gave Moses, for it spoke to God of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, His one and only Son, given up to Him on the cross… So the ban on eating blood reminds us of three important truths. We are creatures, and must remember it. We were sinners by nature, and must admit it. We owe atonement by blood entirely to God, and must always acknowledge it.
The verse does not describe man offering something to God. The direction of the gift runs the other way.
Let us mark the grace here indicated — "I have given it to you." God, against whom we have sinned, provides that by which atonement for our sins can be made. He provides it, and He reveals it.
The gift comes to the man who admits he has no claim to life. The wording then rules out anything added to the blood.
When a man takes his place as someone with no right at all to life, and fully admits God's claims on him, then the divine record is: "I have given you the life to make an atonement for your soul." Yes, atonement is God's gift to man. And note it carefully: this atonement is in the blood, and only in the blood… It is not the blood and something else. The wording could not be plainer. It gives atonement to the blood alone.
The English word can be misread as two parties simply making up. The Hebrew behind it says something more definite.
The Hebrew word employed is Kaphar, which means to cover. It is only by the death of Christ, by His atoning blood, that sin is covered, and its consequences averted. So we read, "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Ps. 32:1)… The New Testament answers all of this beautifully: "The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).
This verse meets the question a troubled person actually asks: what can deal with my own sins?
What can atone for my sins? Can my tears? my prayers? my works?… Suppose every tear of repentance that ever flowed, every prayer that ever went up from the lips of godly people, and every good work that was ever done were put to your credit. If you were still without faith in Jesus, you would be just what you are this minute — an unwashed, an uncleansed, an unpardoned sinner. On the other hand, if your eye only rested for one moment, in faith, on the blood upon the altar… you would come to know that the blood had made atonement for your soul.
- Life forfeited — the sinner has no right to life, and can stand before God only because a substitute died in his place.
- Life poured out — blood shed is life ended, not life still living; and it spoke to God of Christ's life given up on the cross.
- Life given — "I have given it to you" makes atonement God's provision, not man's contribution.
- Life covering life — the Hebrew word for atonement means to cover; the blood covers sin and turns aside what it deserves.
- Life alone — atonement is in the blood and only in the blood; tears, prayers and good works add nothing and replace nothing.
Therefore have I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall the stranger who sojourneth among you eat blood.
Leviticus 17 gives a reason before it gives a rule. Blood carries life, and God assigned it to the altar for atonement. So the ban falls on everyone in Israel, citizen and foreigner alike. That word "therefore" raises the questions this verse turns on: why does God guard blood so closely, why does the ban reach beyond Israel, and does it still touch us?
The ban on eating blood was not new. What is new here is the reason attached to it.
It is interesting to see God's wisdom in choosing the time to reveal His mind. When Moses gave Israel this further reason, the real atonement was still a future event — just as it was when the Lord spoke to Noah and his sons. But Noah and his sons could not have understood what had not yet been shown — the full need of atonement. Israel was different. They had the laws about sacrifices before them, and the rules for the Day of Atonement fresh in their memory. So they could understand something of what atonement meant. That is why this further reason for not eating blood comes in its right order, just after the directions for the Day of Atonement.
Some older translations read "no soul of you shall eat blood" where the ESV has "No person among you." That older wording answers a question about what "soul" means.
Clearly "soul" means the person, for who ever heard of a bodiless soul eating?
Verse 12 names two groups, and the law falls on both alike.
In Israel, as we see in these verses, to eat blood was to provoke the Lord's jealousy, so that the Lord cut off the offender. Israelites or foreigners living among them made no difference. It denied man's duty to acknowledge that life is forfeited to God. People had to own God's claim, if not on the altar, then at least by pouring out the blood on the ground as due to Him, instead of keeping it for their own pleasure. Death was a serious thing, and the Lord would not have it treated lightly, even when He allowed His people to eat flesh killed for food.
The ban is not only a restriction. It teaches where man stands before God.
The prohibition against eating blood reminds us of three important truths. We are creatures, and must remember it. We were by nature sinners, and are to acknowledge it. We owe atonement by blood entirely to God, and are always to own it. So it is all of grace that atonement could be, and has been, made.
The rule rests on what blood is, so its reach goes beyond Israel.
Israel was not to eat the blood of any beast or bird, for it is the life of the creature, and life belongs to God. This law enforced for Israel in particular what God had laid down in Noah's time after the flood, as recorded in Genesis 9:4. Later the apostles and elders gave the same instruction to Gentile believers, as recorded in Acts 15:20 and 29. They were not imposing a mere item of the law of Moses on them. They were passing on a prohibition that applies to all mankind. We do well to observe it, though we do not need to keep the extreme scruples of the Jews, as the instruction of 1 Corinthians 10:25 shows.
This law also explains a shock felt long afterwards, in Jesus' own day.
Anyone who weighs these words can see why our Lord's words in John 6 shocked His Jewish hearers. Yes, His words were symbolic, as so often in this Gospel. Yet what symbol could be more startling? His person and His work are the key to the truth. To eat blood under the law was to rebel against one's forfeited place, and to handle the life that reverts to God and belongs to Him alone. But God now gives eternal life in His Son to every believer, and sent Him to die as propitiation for our sins. Grace changes everything; and we despise the truth if we do not take His death as the food of faith for our souls. But this in no way cancels the sign. In the full light of the New Testament, the apostles, guided by the Spirit, still call us to respect the outward sign that life given up belongs to God.
- Because — blood carries life, and God assigned it to the altar for atonement.
- Timing — God kept this reason from Noah. He gave it to Israel only after the Day of Atonement had taught them what atonement means.
- Both — Israelite and foreigner stand under one rule. Even for meat killed for food, the blood went to the ground as God's due.
- Three lessons — we are creatures, we are sinners by nature, and atonement is God's gift, not our achievement.
- Still — the rule is older than the law, and the apostles repeated it to Gentile believers. The sign now points to Christ's death, taken as the food of faith.