Chapter 12
2023 - Three times in this chapter the Israelites are admonished NOT to eat the blood, but to pour it out like water. They are not to eat "the life with the flesh".
Now that the benefits and consequences of the rules have been reiterated, Moses begins to repeat the specific rules and regs that the people are to follow. This will go on through the rest of this speech, which ends in Chapter 28:68.
I won't try to cover them all, but this first one seems very important:
2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. 4 You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way. [Deu 12:2-4 ESV]
It wasn't just that God hated these false gods, idols, images, and so on. It wasn't just that the Canaanites worshiped false gods, it was also that they worshiped in the wrong way. God is distinguishing the worship of His people Israel from any worship that has taken place before. He is contrasting them starkly with the practices of the nations in Canaan.
In Israel, God is to be worshiped and sacrifices offered in only one, single, unique place and this will be chosen by God as His Place:
5 But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, [Deu 12:5 ESV]
That place turns out to be Jerusalem. God was there, and sacrifices were to be offered there. It is no wonder so many people, even in this time, and under the New Covenant, that people are drawn to this place.
2024 - And we should see in this a complete departure from the way the nations surrounding Israel were doing things. Only the worshipers of Jehovah came to a single, central location to make the sacrifices to their God.
2021 - 8 "You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, [Deu 12:8 ESV]. Interesting verse. The whole book of Judges is about everyone doing what is right in his own eyes. This seems to specifically reference the sacrifices that were being made. Apparently, even at this point after the establishment of the tabernacle, some were still sacrificing on their own and not using the priests. God was allowing this at this time, but it was to stop once He established His habitation - Jerusalem. When exactly did God choose Jerusalem, and this command about sacrificing only in that place go into effect?
2026 - This verse...does it say what I think it does? Look at the contrast here:
15 "However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer. [Deu 12:15 ESV]
So in the ESV this verse is about food. Not sacrifices, food. Here is what LSB says:
15 "However, you may sacrifice and eat meat within any of your gates, whatever you desire, according to the blessing of Yahweh your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the deer. [Deu 12:15 LSB].
This is significantly different. Now look at this verse, a little later in the same chapter:
17 You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings or the contribution that you present, [Deu 12:17 ESV].
So...This appears to be the instructions for the time BEFORE they were established in the land. This seems like "as you go"...but that doesn't really work since they didn't have any towns in Canaan yet. And then there's the whole problem of who's translation to believe.
And I don't know how big a deal this is for us today. We are not required to do it either way.
2026 - Here is one more along that line:
26 "Only your holy things which you may have and your votive offerings, you shall take and go to the place which Yahweh chooses. [Deu 12:26 LSB].
As worded here, these commands are all about the time after they are established in the land. Some sacrifices were allowed at home and would be accepted there. Some could only be made at the Temple. That's how I read it. And convenience and distance play a part in what is allowed where.
Might need a revision of what "right in his own eyes" means in Judges. Maybe that was only about sacrifices, and not about justice in general???
Animals not dedicated to God may be eaten anywhere at any time. They were never to eat the blood. Here is an interesting verse:
20 "When the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, 'I will eat meat,' because you crave meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire. [Deu 12:20 ESV]
I would think this is PETA's least favorite verse. Look how this puts animal rights proponents in direct conflict with the Bible. It puts those who are vegetarian because they think animals shouldn't be eaten into direct conflict with the Bible. Even those who eat only vegetables because they think they are more healthy than meat would be indirectly at odds with the Bible, because this would be God saying people can have all the meat they want even though it's bad for them. Why would God ever give us freedom to do something that is to our harm? Remember too that the dietary rules of the Mosaic Law were to make even their culture distinct from those who surrounded them, make it difficult for other nations to "mingle" with them, and that those reasons went away with the Mosaic Covenant. That is, even unclean animals can be eaten under the New Covenant....because those rules were never about the meat, they were about cultural isolation of Israel from others.
2021 - 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. ... 27 and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the LORD your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, but the flesh you may eat. [Deu 12:23-24, 27 ESV] I had not thought about the significance of the blood being sprinkled on the altar or sometimes poured on the altar when sacrifices were made. It was because the blood was life, and to appease God, life was required. The price of sin is life itself, this is what must be forfeited for sin, or offered to God for sin. It is not about food or fat, really, but about life itself. Only God was allowed the blood. No one else could consume it. How have I missed this for so long?
The chapter ends with an admonition against idolatry. And there are reasons given for why Israel is to worship in a way distinctly, completely different from these nations they are driving out:
29 "When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30 take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods?--that I also may do the same.' 31 You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. [Deu 12:29-31 ESV]
These people worshiped by burning their own children as sacrifices. God is making it clear that He abhors this. He doesn't even want us to look into how they practiced their religions because they were beyond perversion and error and into another place. A demonic place. No more occult books, movies, etc for me. God says we don't need to study such things for "historic value", or understanding. We can live our lives just fine without ever knowing the religious practices of such people. We need to leave it alone.
2021 - I note also that this injunction assumes there will be survivors in the land of Canaan. God never intended that all should die there. Never at all.
2024 - The "original owners" of Israel were so far gone that they were killing their own children to honor gods made of wood and stone and metal. This is the depth of evil in which they lived. Who is even capable of killing their own child? Do we really want to say that the prior claim on this land by the descendants of such people ought to be honored? That is a pretty intense question really...Ought we feel obligated to return land to its previous owners no matter how immoral - by any current standard - such people were? Or ought we to honor those who drove such people into oblivion?