Deuteronomy 14:2

"You are a people holy to the LORD your God." He does not say, "You ought to be a holy people." How could they ever make themselves holy, or make themselves a people who belonged to the LORD in a special way? Completely impossible. If they were not His people, no effort of theirs could ever make them such. But God, in His sovereign grace, keeping the covenant with their fathers, had made them His children, made them a people of His own above all the nations that were on the earth. Here was the solid foundation of Israel's moral structure. 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 really were the children of God, the people of His choice, the people of His own special possession.

The Hebrew word means "to surround on all sides," and so "to gather together, set apart, reserve, appropriate." Applied to property, it would mean the private treasure a person had gained or owned himself, as distinct from what he shared with others… The word "peculiar" came from the Latin peculium, which carries much the same force. It was used of the private purse a member of a household could build up and keep for himself, apart from what had to go to the good of the whole family… So the force of these interesting passages in Titus and 1 Peter will be clear — a people for His own possession.

God had chosen them to be a people of His own, above all the other nations. So they were to be a holy people… The children of the LORD were not to share in the sinful customs of the nations, who have no hope. The law allowed no disfigurement of the kind verse 1 mentions. The Lord whom they served is a Lord of life; they belonged wholly to Him; they were not their own. Grieving like those who have no hope is also forbidden in the New Testament (1 Thess. 4:13).

The ungodly nations cut themselves and shaved the front of their heads to show how they respected people who had died. This was empty hypocrisy, a show of religion meant to draw attention to themselves… Cutting oneself, shaving the hair, weeping and wailing can do nothing for the person who has died… It is right to weep when you feel the loss of someone you love. The Lord Jesus wept in sympathy with Mary and Martha (John 11:32-35). But to put on an outward show is repulsive.

The great fact of Israel's relationship to the LORD marked them off from all the nations under the sun. It was not that they were, in themselves, one bit better or holier than others; but the LORD was holy, and they were His people. "Be holy, for I am holy."

The first 21 verses of Deuteronomy 14 stress that Israel as a nation were a people set apart to God in a special way. So they were to avoid certain common practices, and to be very careful about what they ate… We can usefully carry the thought over to what we read and take into our minds. Let us take care that we do not feed our minds on what is impure.

Israel ought to pay special regard to this instruction. They were a holy people, chosen by God, a special treasure above all other people (v.2). The Church of God today has a higher dignity than this, for God has given her heavenly blessings, and her inheritance is in heaven (Eph. 1:3).