But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
The rule belongs to the law and requirements given through Moses to Israel, which classed all other four-footed flying creeping things as abomination, unclean and unfit for food and forbade eating them because they were not the best articles of food. The same requirements forbade swine's flesh and the flesh of certain other animals and birds, designating what God counted unfit for food. These were health and sanitary laws teaching principles for preserving health, forming part of Israel's strict training in the wilderness before entering Canaan. In Canaan the restrictions on animal food were set to limit its harmful effects.
God forbade eating unclean animals to preserve life and health and to keep the blood pure through simple, healthful food. Such food otherwise fills the blood and system with impurities and humors and shortens life. Obedience keeps mind and physical structure in the best condition of health for service, with mental powers clear and undimmed and brain and muscle not enfeebled. Swine's flesh is expressly prohibited as hurtful under any circumstances, filling the system with humors and in a warm climate often producing leprosy, with far more injurious influence there than in a colder climate. Swine were useful only as free-ranging scavengers devouring decaying substances that would poison the atmosphere, and that service preserved health.
The unclean meats defined by this law were included in the Babylonian king's table, and Daniel's refusal to defile himself by eating the king's food was refusal of those forbidden foods. What God gave as a just and reasonable restriction was later perverted by religious leaders and rabbis who extended it beyond what God specified into unwarranted extremes and burdensome ceremonies. They required all drinking water used to be strained to remove tiny unseen insects, lest the smallest insect be classed with the forbidden unclean creatures. That system kept people anxiously focused on external distinctions rather than true religion. Christ exposed those trivial exactions by contrasting scrupulous exactness about gnats and insects with tolerance of great actual sins, as straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel.
Obeying the distinction makes God's will the supreme law of life, practices temperance in eating and drinking, and refuses to imperil physical and moral powers for indulgence of appetite. It develops clear intellect and perfected Christian character to stand as representatives of the true religion amid heathenism. Intemperance in eating and drinking and indulgence of base passions benumb the fine sensibilities so that sacred things are placed on a level with common things. Full submission to the prohibitions would have removed everything injurious to health and left no sickness among Israel.
The rule belongs to the law and requirements given through Moses to Israel, which classed all other four-footed flying creeping things as abomination, unclean and unfit for food and forbade eating them because they were not the best articles of food. The same requirements forbade swine's flesh and the flesh of certain other animals and birds, designating what God counted unfit for food. These were health and sanitary laws teaching principles for preserving health, forming part of Israel's strict training in the wilderness before entering Canaan. In Canaan the restrictions on animal food were set to limit its harmful effects.
God forbade eating unclean animals to preserve life and health and to keep the blood pure through simple, healthful food. Such food otherwise fills the blood and system with impurities and humors and shortens life. Obedience keeps mind and physical structure in the best condition of health for service, with mental powers clear and undimmed and brain and muscle not enfeebled. Swine's flesh is expressly prohibited as hurtful under any circumstances, filling the system with humors and in a warm climate often producing leprosy, with far more injurious influence there than in a colder climate. Swine were useful only as free-ranging scavengers devouring decaying substances that would poison the atmosphere, and that service preserved health.
The unclean meats defined by this law were included in the Babylonian king's table, and Daniel's refusal to defile himself by eating the king's food was refusal of those forbidden foods. What God gave as a just and reasonable restriction was later perverted by religious leaders and rabbis who extended it beyond what God specified into unwarranted extremes and burdensome ceremonies. They required all drinking water used to be strained to remove tiny unseen insects, lest the smallest insect be classed with the forbidden unclean creatures. That system kept people anxiously focused on external distinctions rather than true religion. Christ exposed those trivial exactions by contrasting scrupulous exactness about gnats and insects with tolerance of great actual sins, as straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel.
Obeying the distinction makes God's will the supreme law of life, practices temperance in eating and drinking, and refuses to imperil physical and moral powers for indulgence of appetite. It develops clear intellect and perfected Christian character to stand as representatives of the true religion amid heathenism. Intemperance in eating and drinking and indulgence of base passions benumb the fine sensibilities so that sacred things are placed on a level with common things. Full submission to the prohibitions would have removed everything injurious to health and left no sickness among Israel.