Leviticus 11:35, commentary and pictures

Leviticus 11 belongs to the laws given through Moses that distinguish clean from unclean and declare certain meats and animals unfit for food. Its rule here is sanitary for daily life, that anything on which any part of a carcass falls becomes unclean, so a contaminated oven or range for pots must be broken down and dismantled. The surrounding dietary distinctions were given to protect health and to limit the harmful effects of eating animal food, permitting the animals least objectionable for food and forbidding others because they were not the best articles of food.

Swine's flesh in particular was never designed to be eaten under any circumstances because it fills the blood and system with impurities and shortens life. In that warm climate it often produced leprosy, with far more injurious influence there than in a colder climate. Swine were useful as free-ranging scavengers left to run free to devour decaying substances that would otherwise poison the atmosphere, and thus preserve health. The restriction as given was just and reasonable, and had Israel submitted to it everything injurious to health would have been removed and no sickness suffered among them, but because they would not submit they were given what they lusted for.

Later religious leaders perverted the law by extending ritual cleanliness beyond what was required into trivial exactions, such as requiring all water used to be strained lest it contain the smallest insect that might be classed with unclean animals. Daniel and his companions' refusal of the food and wine appointed at the king's table was obedience to this requirement even at risk of position and life, because that food included unclean meats that would not keep mind and physical structure in the best health for God's service. They sought knowledge to honor and glorify God and to stand with clear intellect as representatives of true religion amid heathenism, holding the will of God as supreme law. They practiced temperance in eating and drinking so brain and muscle would not be enfeebled, treating clear undimmed mental powers and physical health as a matter of highest consideration, and refusing to imperil physical and moral powers for indulgence of appetite by decided effort against temptation while trusting God.