Leviticus 11:43, commentary and pictures

Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth means no unclean creeping thing is to be eaten, for eating what God has declared unclean defiles the eater. The prohibition belongs to the dietary and health and sanitary laws given through Moses to Israel, and to the strict training in the wilderness after leaving slavery and before entering Canaan to teach principles of health and preserve the people's health. Those restrictions were not arbitrary but were given to preserve life and health, keeping impurities out of the blood, lessening disease, shortening sickness, and keeping mind and body fit. When animal food was permitted upon settlement in Canaan it was placed under careful restrictions that tended to lessen its evil results.

The law pronounced swine's flesh and the flesh of certain other animals, birds, and fish unclean and unfit for food, while specifying the animals considered least objectionable for food. Swine's flesh is hurtful and was never designed to be eaten under any circumstances, filling the system with humors and in a warm climate often producing leprosy, acting more injuriously there than in a colder climate. The proper use of swine is to run free and devour decaying substances that would otherwise poison the atmosphere, thus preserving health. If Israel had submitted to these wise prohibitions God would have removed everything injurious to health and allowed no sickness among them, but because they would not submit He gave them what they lusted for.

Of permitted meats, eating fat and blood was strictly forbidden, only animals in good condition could be used, blood had to be carefully drained, and any creature torn, dead of itself, or improperly bled was excluded. Departing from the divinely appointed diet brings great loss, failure to reach God's ideal of character and fulfill His purpose, valuing the earthly above the spiritual and missing the sacred preeminence He intended. The food at the king's table in Babylon included those unclean meats along with luxuries and wine that cloud the mind, are difficult of digestion, and enfeeble brain and muscle. Daniel and his companions refused it even at risk of position and life because the will of God is the supreme law of life and temperance in eating and drinking keeps mind and physical structure in the best health for God's service.

They refused to imperil physical and moral powers for indulgence of appetite, choosing clear, undimmed mental powers and physical health in order to acquire knowledge to honor and glorify God, to perfect Christian character, and to stand with clear intellect as representatives of true religion amid heathenism. The command was just and reasonable and did not require straining all water for fear that an invisible or smallest insect might count as an unclean animal. That extreme of outward cleanliness was added by the Pharisees who perverted and extended the law beyond what God required, and this focus on trivial outward cleanliness while neglecting serious sins was condemned.