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Deuteronomy 14:21 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
21 “You shall not eat anything that dies of itself.[64] You may give it to the sojourner who is inside your gates, and he may eat it, or it may be sold to a foreigner. For you are a holy people to Jehovah your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
[64] That is, any animal found dead
Why Could Israelites Give a Stranger an Animal Found Dead Yet Not Eat It Themselves?
A non-Israelite was known as a stranger, foreigner, or alien resident who did not become a proselyte and was not under the Mosaic Law. So, they were not obligated not to use animals that had not been bled. So, an Israelite giving or selling an animal found dead to a stranger or foreigner was not an abuse of the matter as though trying to get around a portion of the Mosaic Law or do something scandalous. The Israelites were not commanded not to eat or use an animal found dead because they were forbidden to eat any animal that had not been properly drained of its blood or to eat blood. An animal found dead could not be bled properly, and blood would remain in the meat. There was no unfairness taking place. It was simply a condition that other nations were not obligated to observe placed on the Israelites. The reason is shown by the words, “For you are a holy people to Jehovah your God: Jehovah your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.” – Deuteronomy 7:6.
What would be why God prohibits the Israelites from boiling a kid (young goat) in its mother’s milk?
This prohibition appears three times in the Mosaic Law. (Ex 23:19; 34:26; Deut. 14:21) This prohibition helps the reader appreciate Jehovah God’s decency, concern for his created beings, and sensitivity.
If we pause for a moment and consider what God created the milk for; to nourish the young goat and help it grow. Therefore, to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk would be contrary to the arrangement that God had set in place.
There are other suggestions as to why God established this prohibition: (1) it was an idolatrous practice, (2) it was an occult practice to improve the productivity of the land, (3) the belief that milk and meat were difficult to digest, (4) it would be disrespectful to the feast of ingathering, (5) and so on.
In reality, the Law had several comparable restrictions against brutality toward animals and protections against working in opposition to the natural order of things. For example, the Law encompassed instructions that prohibited sacrificing an animal except when it had been with its mother for at least seven days, sacrificing both an animal and its young on the same day, and taking from a nest both a mother and her eggs or young. – Leviticus 22:27, 28; Deuteronomy 22:6-7.
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