Now that Aaron was consecrated a high priest over the house of God, God
spoke to him with Moses, and appointed them both as joint-commissioners
to deliver his will to the people. He spoke both to Moses and to Aaron
about this matter; for it was particularly required of the priests that
they should put a difference between clean and unclean, and teach the
people to do so. After the flood, when God entered into covenant with
Noah and his sons, he allowed them to eat flesh (Gen. ix. 13), whereas
before they were confined to the productions of the earth. But the
liberty allowed to the sons of Noah is here limited to the sons of
Israel. They might eat flesh, but not all kinds of flesh; some they
must look upon as unclean and forbidden to them, others as clean and
allowed them. The law in this matter is both very particular and very
strict. But what reason can be given for this law? Why may not God's
people have as free a use of all the creatures as other people? 1. It
is reason enough that God would have it so: his will, as it is law
sufficient, so it is reason sufficient; for his will is his wisdom. He
saw good thus to try and exercise the obedience of his people, not only
in the solemnities of his altar, but in matters of daily occurrence at
their own table, that they might remember they were under authority.
Thus God had tried the obedience of man in innocency, by forbidding him
to eat of one particular tree. 2. Most of the meats forbidden as
unclean are such as were really unwholesome, and not fit to be eaten;
and those of them that we think wholesome enough, and use accordingly,
as the rabbit, the hare, and the swine, perhaps in those countries, and
to their bodies, might be hurtful. And then God in this law did by them
but as a wise and loving father does by his children, whom he restrains
from eating that which he knows will make them sick. Note, The Lord is
for the body, and it is not only folly, but sin against God, to
prejudice our health for the pleasing of our appetite. 3. God would
thus teach his people to distinguish themselves from other people, not
only in their religious worship, but in the common actions of life.
Thus he would show them that they must not be numbered among the
nations. It should seem there had been, before this, some difference
between the Hebrews and other nations in their food, kept up by
tradition; for the Egyptians and they would not eat together, Gen.
xliii. 32. And even before the flood there was a distinction of beasts
into clean and not clean (Gen. vii. 2), which distinction was quite
lost, with many other instances of religion, among the Gentiles. But by
this law it is reduced to a certainty, and ordered to be kept up among
the Jews, that thus, by having a diet peculiar to themselves, they
might be kept from familiar conversation with their idolatrous
neighbours, and might typify God's spiritual Israel, who not in these
little things, but in the temper of their spirits, and the course of
their lives, should be governed by a sober singularity, and not be
conformed to this world. The learned observe further, That most of the
creatures which by this law were to be abominated as unclean were such
as were had in high veneration among the heathen, not so much for food
as for divination and sacrifice to their gods; and therefore those are
here mentioned as unclean, and an abomination, which yet they would not
be in any temptation to eat, that they might keep up a religious
loathing of that for which the Gentiles had a superstitious value. The
swine, with the later Gentiles, was sacred to Venus, the owl to
Minerva, the eagle to Jupiter, the dog to Hecate, &c., and all these
are here made unclean. As to the beasts, there is a general rule laid
down, that those which both part the hoof and chew the cud were clean,
and those only: these are particularly mentioned in the repetition of
this law (Deut. xiv. 4, 5), where it appears that the Israelites had
variety enough allowed them, and needed not to complain of the
confinement they were under. Those beasts that did not both chew the
cud and divide the hoof were unclean, by which rule the flesh of swine,
and of hares, and of rabbits, was prohibited to them, though commonly
used among us. Therefore, particularly at the eating of any of these,
we should give thanks for the liberty granted us in this matter by the
gospel, which teaches us that every creature of God is good, and we are
to call nothing common or unclean. Some observe a significancy in the
rule here laid down for them to distinguish by, or at least think it
may be alluded to. Meditation, and other acts of devotion done by the
hidden man of the heart, may be signified by the chewing of the cud,
digesting our spiritual food; justice and charity towards men, and the
acts of a good conversation, may be signified by the dividing of the
hoof. Now either of these without the other will not serve to recommend
us to God, but both must go together, good affections in the heart and
good works in the life: if either be wanting, we are not clean, surely
we are not clean. Of all the creatures here forbidden as unclean, none
has been more dreaded and detested by the pious Jews than swine's
flesh. Many were put to death by Antiochus because they would not eat
it. This, probably, they were most in danger of being tempted to, and
therefore possessed themselves and their children with a particular
antipathy to it, calling it not by its proper name, but a strange
thing. It should seem the Gentiles used it superstitiously (Isa. lxv.
4), they eat swine's flesh; and therefore God forbids all use of it to
his people, lest they should learn of their neighbours to make that ill
use of it. Some suggest that the prohibition of these beasts as unclean
was intended to be a caution to the people against the bad qualities of
these creatures. We must not be filthy nor wallow in the mire as swine,
nor be timorous and faint-hearted as hares, nor dwell in the earth as
rabbits; let not man that is in honour make himself like these beasts
that perish. The law forbade, not only the eating of them, but the very
touching of them; for those that would be kept from any sin must be
careful to avoid all temptations to it, and every thing that looks
towards it or leads to it.