The Grammar of Holiness: Eating with God Text: Deuteronomy 14:3-21
Introduction: A Peculiar People
We live in an age that despises distinctions. Our culture is laboring with all its might to erase every line God has drawn. The lines between man and woman, good and evil, truth and falsehood, sacred and profane, are all being systematically attacked and blurred. The goal is a kind of global, gray goo, a world where everything is tolerated and nothing is holy. Into this deliberate confusion, the Word of God speaks with startling clarity. God is a God of distinctions. He creates by separating. He saves by separating. And He sanctifies His people by teaching them to separate.
This is the central point of the dietary laws here in Deuteronomy. Modern people, and even many well-meaning Christians, get tangled up in these texts. They want to treat them as primitive health codes, as though God were running an ancient version of the FDA. Or they dismiss them as arbitrary and bizarre rules that have no relevance to us now that Christ has declared all foods clean. But both of these approaches miss the forest for the trees. These laws are not primarily about hygiene; they are about holiness. They are not arbitrary; they are a symbolic grammar, a picture book for Israel, teaching them what it means to be a people set apart for Yahweh in a world full of idols.
Israel was about to enter Canaan, a land saturated with paganism. The Canaanites worshipped gods who were capricious, cruel, and monstrously immoral. Their worship involved ritual prostitution, child sacrifice, and all manner of abominations. Their view of the world was chaotic. To guard His people from this spiritual poison, God gave them a comprehensive way of life that marked them as His own. This included how they worshipped, how they governed, how they farmed, and yes, how they ate. Every meal was to be a lesson in theology. Every choice at the table was a declaration of allegiance: we belong to Yahweh, the God who brings order out of chaos, not to the gods of the Canaanites who drag order back into chaos.
These laws were a tangible, daily reminder of the Creator/creature distinction. God is the one who defines what is clean and unclean, what is acceptable and what is abominable. By obeying these commands, Israel was acknowledging His sovereignty over every area of life, right down to their stomachs. They were a peculiar people, a holy nation, and their diet was one of the principal ways they displayed that peculiarity to the world.
The Text
"You shall not eat any abominable thing. These are the animals which you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. And any animal that divides the hoof and has the hoof split in two and chews the cud, among the animals, that one you may eat. Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these among those which chew the cud or among those that divide the hoof in two: the camel and the rabbit and the shaphan, for though they chew the cud, they do not divide the hoof; they are unclean for you. And the pig, because it divides the hoof but does not chew the cud, it is unclean for you. You shall not eat any of their flesh nor touch their carcasses. These you may eat of all that are in water: anything that has fins and scales you may eat, but anything that does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you. You may eat any clean bird. But these are the ones which you shall not eat: the eagle and the vulture and the buzzard, and the red kite, the falcon, and the kite in their kinds, and every raven in its kind, and the ostrich, the owl, the gull, and the hawk in their kinds, the little owl, the great owl, the white owl, the pelican, the carrion vulture, the cormorant, the stork, and the heron in their kinds, and the hoopoe and the bat. And all the teeming life with wings are unclean to you; they shall not be eaten. You may eat any clean bird. You shall not eat anything which dies of itself. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your gates, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk."
(Deuteronomy 14:3-21 LSB)
The Logic of the Land (vv. 3-8)
The instruction begins with a sweeping prohibition, setting the tone for everything that follows.
"You shall not eat any abominable thing." (Deuteronomy 14:3)
The word "abominable" is a strong one. It refers to that which is detestable to God, often in the context of idolatry. This isn't about personal taste; it's about theological loyalty. To eat what God calls unclean is to participate in a system that is hostile to Him. The list that follows, then, is a definition of what constitutes a "clean" meal, a meal fit for the people of God.
For land animals, the rule is twofold: they must have a divided hoof and they must chew the cud. The clean animals listed, like the ox, sheep, and deer, all fit this pattern. What is the symbolic significance here? The split hoof speaks of discernment, of making distinctions, of walking rightly through the world. A clean animal is one that can separate, that doesn't just plod along on a solid pad. It picks its way. Chewing the cud is a picture of meditation on the Word of God. The animal takes in the food, then brings it back up to chew on it, to extract all the nourishment. So, a "clean" walk is one characterized by careful discernment and constant meditation on God's truth.
The unclean animals are those that fail this two-part test. The camel, rabbit, and shaphan chew the cud but don't have a divided hoof. They appear to be meditative, but their walk is undiscerning. This is a picture of the person who has a lot of religious knowledge but no practical wisdom, no ability to apply it to life. They can talk a good game, but their feet are stuck together. They are syncretists, blending truth with error.
The pig is the opposite. It has a divided hoof but doesn't chew the cud. It appears discerning in its walk, making outward distinctions, but it does not meditate on the truth. This is the picture of the externalist, the legalist. He has all the right separations, all the right rules, but his heart is not nourished by the Word. He will eat anything, garbage included. He is all form and no substance. Both are unclean because both represent a compromised walk with God.
The Logic of the Sea and Sky (vv. 9-20)
The same principle of clear distinctions applies to the creatures of the water and the air.
"These you may eat of all that are in water: anything that has fins and scales you may eat, but anything that does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you." (Deuteronomy 14:9-10 LSB)
In the water, the clean creatures are normal fish. They have fins to propel and guide them, and scales for protection. They are equipped for their environment. The unclean water creatures are the bottom-dwellers, the scavengers, the slithery things without clear locomotion or covering, like shellfish, eels, and catfish. They represent the murky, the chaotic, the things that blur the line between the water and the mud. God's people are to be straightforward, not murky. They are to move with purpose, not slither in the depths.
The list of unclean birds is also instructive. It is largely a list of predators and scavengers. The eagle, the vulture, the hawk, the owl, they all live by violence and feed on death. Ravens and other carrion birds feast on carcasses. These are creatures of the dark, associated with bloodshed and decay. God's people are to be a people of life, not death. They are not to live by predation. The bat is also included, a creature that blurs the line between bird and mammal, a creature of the twilight. Again, the principle is clear: avoid the ambiguous, the violent, and the things associated with death and darkness.
The prohibition on "teeming life with wings," or insects, follows the same logic. Most insects are unclean, but Leviticus makes an exception for those like locusts and grasshoppers that have jointed legs for leaping from the earth. They don't just crawl; they spring up. The point throughout is that God's people are to identify with creatures that fit the clear, created order. They are to reject the hybrid, the scavenger, the predator, and the bottom-feeder.
Holiness in Practice (v. 21)
The chapter concludes with two specific prohibitions that drive the point home.
"You shall not eat anything which dies of itself... for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk." (Deuteronomy 14:21 LSB)
An animal that dies of itself has not been properly slaughtered and drained of its blood. Blood represents the life of the creature, and it belongs to God. To eat such an animal is to disrespect God's sovereignty over life and death. Notice the allowance given: it can be given to a sojourner or sold to a foreigner. This is not because God doesn't care about them, but because they are not under the specific covenant stipulations of Israel. This law was a mark of Israel's unique status as a "holy people." Their holiness required a higher standard.
The final command, not to boil a young goat in its mother's milk, seems strange to us, but it was a direct polemic against a common Canaanite fertility ritual. The pagans would do this very thing as an act of sympathetic magic, hoping to promote the fertility of their herds. For an Israelite to do this would be to engage in rank idolatry. But the principle is deeper still. Milk is the substance God designed to give life and nourishment to the young goat. To use that very substance as the instrument of its death is a grotesque perversion of the created order. It is turning a symbol of life into an instrument of death. God's people must not do this. That which God has given for life must not be twisted into an agent of death.
Eating in the New Covenant
So what are we to do with all this? Are Christians supposed to keep kosher? The New Testament is abundantly clear that the answer is no. In Mark 7, Jesus declared all foods clean. In Acts 10, God gave Peter a vision of a sheet full of unclean animals and told him to "kill and eat." The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 explicitly freed Gentile believers from the ceremonial requirements of the Mosaic law. Paul tells us that "the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17) and that "everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving" (1 Timothy 4:4).
The ceremonial law, with its pictures and shadows, has been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the substance. He is the perfect, clean sacrifice. He is the one who truly chewed the cud, meditating on His Father's will, and whose walk was perfectly discerning. By His death, He has cleansed us and made us a holy people, not by what we eat, but by faith in His blood.
But this does not mean these laws have nothing to teach us. The shadows are gone, but the reality they pointed to remains. The underlying principle of holiness through separation is not abolished; it is transformed and internalized. We are no longer called to separate ourselves from certain foods, but we are most certainly called to separate ourselves from the world's way of thinking and living.
We are still required to have a "split hoof," to make sharp, clear distinctions between truth and error, righteousness and unrighteousness, the church and the world. We are still required to "chew the cud," to meditate on the Word of God day and night, so that our minds are transformed and we are not conformed to this age. We are to reject the spiritual scavenger's diet of worldly media and godless philosophies. We are to refuse to live by predation and violence. We are to refuse to pervert the things of God, turning instruments of life like sex, marriage, and family into instruments of death and rebellion.
The dietary laws were a fence God put around Israel to teach them the grammar of holiness. In Christ, that grammar is now written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We are a holy people to the Lord our God. Therefore, we must not eat the abominable things of the world's table. We must not partake of its idolatries, its immoralities, its bitterness, its envy, its godless ideologies. We are called to a feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb, and we must live as a people who are preparing for that meal, cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.