For the life of all flesh is its blood. Therefore I have told the Israelites, ‘You must not eat the blood of any living thing, because the life of all flesh is its blood; whoever eats it must be cut off.’
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.
Commenting on Leviticus 17:10-16
For it is the life of all flesh,.... Of every animal: the blood of it is for the life thereof; for the production, preservation, and continuance of life; that on which life depends, as Jarchi observes: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; of beasts or birds, whose flesh was fit for food; but...
Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh - Independently of the moral reasons given above, we may add, 1. That blood, being highly alkalescent, especially in hot climates, is subject to speedy putrefaction. 2. That it affords a gross nutriment, being very difficult of digestion, so much so that bull's blood was used in ancient times as poison, "Its extreme viscidity rendering...