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Exodus 23:18–19
“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning. The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
Over the past few days we have been studying a portion of the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 21–23) that contains various instructions for worship. The laws regulating Sabbath observance and the keeping of three of Israel’s feasts and festivals (23:10–17) instructed believers on the kind of worship that pleases God. Today’s passage continues to address matters of worship by giving several laws related to proper sacrifices.
The prohibitions of eating the blood of the sacrifice, letting the fat of sacrifice remain until morning, and bringing the best of the firstfruits likely have as their background various pagan practices. As far back as Noah, ancient Near Eastern peoples associated blood with life (Gen. 9:4), which makes sense because an animal’s or human’s losing enough blood means death. Over time, the pagan peoples of Canaan developed religious practices around blood as part of their worship. They might drink blood or add it to leavened bread or cakes that they ate, believing that by consuming blood they would be encouraging life and fertility in their crops. Israel, however, could not engage in such practices in the worship of the one true God (Ex. 23:18a), for true worship is according to God’s design.
Exodus 23:18b–19a instructs the Israelites in what to do with the fat of the sacrifices and their firstfruits. The Canaanites did not always burn the fat of an animal with their sacrifices but sometimes left it until morning, and they did not necessarily offer their gods the firstfruits of their crops. Thus, the command to burn the fat right away and to give God the firstfruits served to keep Israel’s worship distinct from that of other nations. These rules also reminded the Israelites that the Lord deserves the very best we can offer and that we are not supposed to give Him the leftovers after we have taken what we want.
In Exodus 23:19b, we read that the Israelites were not to “boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.” The exact reason for this law is unknown. It may be rooted in the Canaanite practice of sacrifice that sometimes included cooking the meat of the offering in the milk of its mother in the belief that doing so would improve the fertility of the flock. Another possibility is that boiling a kid in its mother’s milk too closely associated death (the animal carcass) with life (the milk that grants life to the animal), making the practice unfit for true worship. Either way, Israelites could not boil an animal in the milk of its mother.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Later Jews used the prohibition of boiling a goat in its mother’s milk as a basis for never putting milk and meat together. The idea is that if you never combine milk and meat in any way, you will be guaranteed not to break the rule against boiling a kid in its mother’s milk. The intent may be good, but it places a burden on people that God never gave. Let us take care never to exhort people to do things not actually commanded in Scripture.
For Further Study
- Deuteronomy 4:2
- Deuteronomy 12:32
- Deuteronomy 14:21
- 1 Samuel 2:12–17
- Revelation 22:18–19