Bible Commentaries

Deuteronomy 14:1 Ye [are] the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.

Ver. 1. Ye are the children of the Lord.] Ye should therefore do nothing unworthy of such a Father. Antigonus being invited to a place where a notable harlot was to be present, asked counsel of Menedemus what he should do? He bade him only remember that he was a king’s son, and do accordingly. ^(a)

Ye shall not cut. {See Trapp on "Leviticus 19:28"}

Deuteronomy 14:2 For thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that [are] upon the earth.

Ver. 2. For thou art.] {See Trapp on "Deuteronomy 7:6"}

And the Lord hath chosen thee.] Hence all thy holiness. The maids were first purified, before Ahasuerus chose one; but here it is otherwise. [Ephesians 5:25-26]

Deuteronomy 14:3 Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing.

Ver. 3. Thou shalt not eat any abominable.] {See Trapp on "Leviticus 11:1"} &c. This law taught them to abstain from communion with wicked men, in whom are found the malignities and evil properties of all other creatures. [Acts 10:13; Acts 10:17; Acts 10:20; Acts 10:28] They feed hard on sin, the devil’s excrement; as the Tartars eat the carrion, carcasses of horses, camels, asses, cats, dogs, yea, when they stink and are full of maggots, and hold them as dainty as we do venison.

Deuteronomy 14:5 The hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois.

Ver. 5. The hart and the roebuck.] These were dainties fit for a king. [1 Kings 4:23] Rice and mutton is the cheer wherewith the great Turk entertaineth foreign ambassadors, and that so plainly and sparingly dressed, as if they would give check to our gormandise and excess.

And the wild ox.] Pliny saith, ^(a) that there are wild creatures answerable to all that are tame: like as others say there is no living creature on earth, but there are fishes of the same sort found in the sea, and those all harmless.

Deuteronomy 14:6 And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, [and] cheweth the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat.

Ver. 6. That parteth the hoof.] {See Trapp on "Leviticus 11:3"}

Deuteronomy 14:21 Ye shall not eat [of] any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that [is] in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

Ver. 21. Thou shalt not seethe,] {See Trapp on "Exodus 23:19"}

Deuteronomy 14:22 Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.

Ver. 22. Thou shalt truly tithe.] He seems to mean that second tithe, wherewith they were to feast before the Lord, and not the tithe given to the Levites. [Numbers 18:24]

Deuteronomy 14:23 And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always.

Ver. 23. That thou mayest learn,] A man cannot converse with God, but he shall learn something. Semper a te doctior redeo, said he to his friend. Moses came from the mount with his face shining. Compare Ecclesiastes 8:1.

Deuteronomy 14:29 And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which [are] within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.

Ver. 29. That the Lord thy God, &c.] Not getting, but giving, is the way to thrive in the world.