Exodus 22:31

_AND YE SHALL BE HOLY MEN UNTO ME: NEITHER SHALL YE EAT ANY FLESH THAT IS TORN OF BEASTS IN THE FIELD; YE SHALL CAST IT TO THE DOGS._ Ye shall be holy men unto me. Since you are a people separated to my service (see the note at Exodus 19:6), so you must keep yourselves free from all impurity, both moral and spiritual. NEITHER SHALL YE EAT ANY FLESH THAT IS TORN OF BEASTS IN THE FIELD. The reasons for this prohibition were partly moral and partly ceremonial- (1) To create a disgust at everything which bore the marks of cruelty; (2) To preserve ceremonial distinctions, as the clean beast or fowl was polluted by the contact of the unclean beast of prey; and (3) To prevent the eating of blood, which could not be wholly drained from the mangled carcass (see further the notes at...

Verse Exodus 22:31. _NEITHER SHALL YE EAT - FLESH - TORN OF BEASTS IN THE_ _FIELD_] This has been supposed to be an ordinance against eating flesh cut off the animal while alive, and so the Syriac seems to have understood it. If we can credit Mr. Bruce, this is a frequent custom in Abyssinia; but human nature revolts from it. The _reason_ of the prohibition against eating the flesh of animals that had been _torn_, or as we term it _worried in the field_, appears to have been simply this: That the people might not eat the _blood_, which in this case must be coagulated in the flesh; and the _blood_, being _the life of the beast_, and emblematical of the _blood of the covenant_, was ever to be held sacred, and was prohibited from the days of Noah. Genesis 9:4...

The sanctification of the nation was emphatically symbolized by strictness of diet as regards both the kind of animal, and the mode of slaughtering. See Leviticus 11; Leviticus 17....

EXPOSITION II. LAWS CONNECTED WITH RIGHTS OF PROPERTY (verses 33-36). From the consideration of injuries to the person, the legislator proceeds to treat of injuries to property, and, as he has been speaking of cattle under the one head, places cattle in the fore-front of the other. In this chapter two enactments only are made—one providing compensation in the case of a man' s cattle being killed by falling into the pit, or well, of a neighbour (verses 33, 34); and the other making provision for the case of one man' s cattle killing the cattle of another (verses 35, 36) EXODUS 21:33 IF A MAN SHALL OPEN A PIT. Rather, "If a man shall uncover a cistern." Cisterns, very necessary in Palestine, were usually closed by a

AND YE SHALL BE HOLY MEN UNTO ME,.... They were so by God's act of election, not special and particular, but general and national; choosing and separating them to be an holy people to him, above all the people on the face of the earth, and in a ceremonial sense they observing laws and appointments of God of this kind; which is the sense here intended, as appears by what follows: all men, and so these Israelites, ought to be holy in a moral sense, and some are holy in a spiritual and evangelical sense, being made holy by the Spirit of God; of these the Apostle Peter speaks, in allusion to this, and such like passages, 1 Peter 2:9 NEITHER SHALL YE EAT ANY FLESH THAT IS TORN OF BEASTS IN THE FIELD; or in the house, as Jarchi notes; but the Scripture, as he observes, speaks of the place where it is more usual for beasts to tear, and so Aben Ezra; otherwise what is torn elsewhere,

CHAPTER 22 FURTHER JUDGMENTS _ 1. Concerning theft (Exodus 22:1)_ 2. Concerning neglect in case of fire (Exodus 22:6) 3. Concerning dishonesty (Exodus 22:7) 4. Concerning immoralities and forbidden things (Exodus 22:16) 5. Concerning oppression (Exodus 22:21) 6. Concerning offerings to God (Exodus 22:29) These laws need no further comment; they are good and just. The wisdom of them is the wisdom from above. We call atte

EXODUS 22:18 E. VARIOUS ORDINANCES. From this point up to Exodus 23:9 we have to do with miscellaneous laws, differing in the main both in form and substance from the Judgments, and therefore here regarded as belonging to the Book of the Covenant. But they may have come independently of either code. The death penalty for a sorceress (Exodus 22:18) sounds unduly severe, and this law may be taken as a classical instance of the progressive nature of revelation. Conditions change, and conscience gains light: hence Hebrew laws must not, it is at last perceived, bind Christian men, unless ratified afresh by the conscience. For lack of this perception witches were executed up to...

MEN. Hebrew, plural of _'ish_ or _'enosh._ App-14....

Exodus 20:22 to Exodus 23:33 _The Book of the Covenant_ The -Book of the Covenant" (see Exodus 24:7 in explanation of the name) is the oldest piece of Hebrew legislation that we possess. The laws contained in it are spoken of in Exodus 24:3 as consisting of two elements, the WORDS (or commands) and the JUDGEMENTS: the JUDGEMENTS (see on Exodus 21:1) are the provisions relating to civil and criminal law, prescribing what is to be done when particular cases arise, and comprised in...

AND YE SHALL BE HOLY MEN UNTO ME— See note on ch. Exodus 19:6. As the prohibition of eating flesh torn by beasts, is immediately subjoined to these words, Le Clerc's conjecture seems extremely probable, that _holy men_ here signifies, _consecrated,_ as priests, _in holiness to me:_ it being likely that the priests _only_ of the other nations, and of Egypt especially, abstained at all times from whatever was accidentally killed, or died of itself. Pythagoras, it is well known, derived his philosophy from the Egyptian priests; and he taught, that those who would duly qualify themselves for the worship of the gods, ought, among other things, to touch no dead body; and to abstain from flesh torn by beasts, and from that which dies of itself. Others of the heathens, as Calmet has well observed, had the same aversion to flesh torn by beasts. Phocylides thus enjoins, "Abstain