And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole.
This law belongs to that given through Moses which distinguishes clean from unclean animals and forbids eating certain animals as unclean and unfit for food. It was part of health and sanitary instruction that trained Israel in health and obedience before entering Canaan. The restriction was not arbitrary but was given for the people's good to preserve life and health and to protect them.
The flesh thus forbidden was prohibited because it is not the best food, is hurtful to health, fills the blood with impurities and shortens life, and cannot keep mind and body in the best condition for serving God. If Israel had submitted to the prohibitions, everything injurious to health would have been removed and no sickness allowed among them, but when they refused to submit they were given what they lusted for. The particular small creatures named here are not treated separately apart from the general class of unclean foods.
The unclean foods it forbids were among the food appointed for Daniel and his companions at the Babylonian king's table, and their refusal was obedience to this requirement even at the risk of position and life. They refused because they had been taught such food harms mental and physical fitness for God's service. They aimed to honor God, to perfect character, and to keep clear intellect as representatives of true religion amid heathenism with God's will as the supreme law of life, practicing temperance to avoid enfeebling brain and muscle, prizing physical health most highly, refusing to imperil physical and moral powers for appetite, and resisting temptation by decided effort and trust in God.
Later teachers perverted the law by extending it to unwarranted extremes, treating even the smallest insects that might be in drinking water as unclean, requiring all water to be filtered, and burdening people with added ceremonies and continual anxiety about clean and unclean things. This distortion was exposed by contrasting scrupulosity over tiny unclean creatures with neglect of grave sins, describing the teachers as blind guides who filter out a tiny insect while swallowing a large animal.
This law belongs to that given through Moses which distinguishes clean from unclean animals and forbids eating certain animals as unclean and unfit for food. It was part of health and sanitary instruction that trained Israel in health and obedience before entering Canaan. The restriction was not arbitrary but was given for the people's good to preserve life and health and to protect them.
The flesh thus forbidden was prohibited because it is not the best food, is hurtful to health, fills the blood with impurities and shortens life, and cannot keep mind and body in the best condition for serving God. If Israel had submitted to the prohibitions, everything injurious to health would have been removed and no sickness allowed among them, but when they refused to submit they were given what they lusted for. The particular small creatures named here are not treated separately apart from the general class of unclean foods.
The unclean foods it forbids were among the food appointed for Daniel and his companions at the Babylonian king's table, and their refusal was obedience to this requirement even at the risk of position and life. They refused because they had been taught such food harms mental and physical fitness for God's service. They aimed to honor God, to perfect character, and to keep clear intellect as representatives of true religion amid heathenism with God's will as the supreme law of life, practicing temperance to avoid enfeebling brain and muscle, prizing physical health most highly, refusing to imperil physical and moral powers for appetite, and resisting temptation by decided effort and trust in God.
Later teachers perverted the law by extending it to unwarranted extremes, treating even the smallest insects that might be in drinking water as unclean, requiring all water to be filtered, and burdening people with added ceremonies and continual anxiety about clean and unclean things. This distortion was exposed by contrasting scrupulosity over tiny unclean creatures with neglect of grave sins, describing the teachers as blind guides who filter out a tiny insect while swallowing a large animal.