Chapter 14

Moses continues his address to the people, and is now reminding them of some of the specific laws God has given them.

The first 2 verses are about mourning practices identified with the religions of those Israel was about to dispossess.  Don't cut yourselves, or make your forehead bald for the dead.

Vss 3-21 are about what they can and cannot eat, specifically.  There is this verse that I think gives some insight into the dietary laws:

21 "You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God... [Deu 14:21a ESV]

If this food could be sold or given to foreigners and strangers and passers-through, the point was not that these things were unhealthy or unsound to eat.  This likely applies to all the other foods that were prohibited to Israel.  It was maybe a little about diet, but mostly it was about setting them apart as a separate people, holy to God.  They were to be unlike any other people on the planet, and these dietary laws within their culture set their culture apart from all others.  None had dietary restrictions like this, and none worshiped a single God in a unique and appointed single place.  The fact that all these restrictions go away in the NT and are never a part of the New Covenant confirm that there is nothing inherently wrong with eating pork.  If there was, the restriction would never have been relaxed.  It was all about being different during this time when God was blessing a nation, working with a whole nation, rather than with individuals as He had up to that time.

These are some of the things contained in this section:

Don't eat unclean things- pigs, rabbits, hares, rock badgers, camels and pigs.

Don't eat fish that don't have fins and scales.

Don't eat eagles, vultures, kites, falcons, ravens, ostriches, nighthawks, sea gulls or hawks.  Nor owls, carrion vultures or cormorants, storks or herons, hoopoes or bats. 

No winged insects.

2026 - I asked ChatGPT to make a list of modern seafood that DOES have fins and scales:

Commonly sold seafood that would generally be clean includes:

Note that catfish does not make the "good food" list.

2026 - In verse 21, no young goat in its mother's milk:

The two strongest explanations are:

1. It forbids a pagan or magical fertility/agricultural rite, especially because of the firstfruits context in Exodus.
   

2. It forbids a symbolic moral inversion: using the mother’s life-giving milk as the cooking medium for her own young.

This prohibition shows up three times.  Twice in Exodus, and then here.  The Jews turned this into a prohibition to heat meat and dairy together.  They took the specific and generalized it.

Those are not mutually exclusive. A pagan ritual may have been objectionable precisely because it embodied that kind of symbolic inversion.

The short version of the likely principle: Israel was not to imitate pagan fertility rites or treat the created order in a way that perversely mingled nurture and death.

Beginning in vs 22, there is instruction concerning tithes.  It is interesting that they were to eat the tithe of grain, wine, and oil.  Though they were God's, this was portrayed in eating these tithes in God's presence.  So they were not "parted" from this produce of their land, they just had to eat it in a certain place. 

If you lived too far from the place God chose, you were to convert your tithe to money, take the money to Jerusalem, and spend it on whatever you desired or craved.  I have most certainly never seen this verse before:

26 and spend the money for whatever you desire--oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. [Deu 14:26 ESV]

Strong drink if you want it?  MSB has several notes on this:  Prov 20:1; Prov 23:29-35, about alcoholism, and Prov 31:4-7.  All three of these are about the dangers of alcohol, and some mention strong drink specifically.  Yet this verse in Deuteronomy remains...All things in moderation.  I am sure Dt is not telling us we can get drunk if it's a tithe.  But an unusual verse, and since I've never noticed it nor heard it preached before, I'm guessing it is not very popular with Baptists!

2026 - This chart from ChatGPT:

The key is that Scripture does not treat alcohol as intrinsically evil. It treats drunkenness, addiction, abuse, and loss of judgment as evil.

So there are several categories:

And here is another practice I'd not noticed before:

28 "At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. 29 And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do. [Deu 14:28-29 ESV]

Per MSB, in years 3 and 6 of the 7 year cycle, God's tithe was stored in each city, and used to feed the poor, homeless, widows, and so on.  They were taken care of by "the church" so to speak, in that God didn't demand that the tithe come to Jerusalem, but it was used for benevolence.  What an awesome way to do things!