Leviticus 19:26

Ye shall not eat [anything] with the blood,.... Or upon, over, or by the blood (s), for this law seems different from that in Genesis 9:4, and from those in Leviticus 3:17; and is variously

Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times. Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood , [ `al (H5921) hadaam (H1818)] - upon the blood.

With the blood, i. e. any flesh out of which the blood is not first poured. See . The Jews write, that the Egyptians and other nations, when they offered sacrifices to the devils, did eat part of the sacrifices, beside the blood which was kept in basons for that end, which also they believed to be as it were the special food of the devils. Nor observe times, to wit, superstitiously, by the observation of the clouds, or stars, or otherwise, by esteeming some days lucky, others unlucky. See ,11 Es 3:7.

Leviticus 19:26 Ye shall not eat [any thing] with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.Ver. 26. Neither shall ye use enchantment.] Or, observe fortunes, conjecture by signs of good or evil luck, as some render it.

(26) Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood.—According to the administrators of the law during the second Temple, there are no less than five different things forbidden here. It prohibits (1) eating the flesh of a legally slaughtered animal as long as its life is not quite gone, or whilst the flesh is still trembling; (2) eating the flesh of sacrificial animals whilst the blood is still in the sprinkling bowl, and before it has been sprinkled on the altar; (3) eating the meat of mourners by the relatives when a member of the family has been publicly executed, and his blood has been shed; (4) eating anything by the judicial court on the day when their sentence of death is being executed on the criminal; and (5) it warns the rebellious and gluttonous son not to eat immoderately by the penalty of blood.” The ancient Chaldee Version, therefore, which translates it “Ye shall not eat the flesh of any sacrifice whilst the blood is in the basin unsprinkled,” exhibits the second of these prohibitions involved in this interpretation; and all the five premise the rendering of this phrase, “Ye shall not eat by the blood,” which has the merit of being literal; whilst the Authorised Version follows the first of these five prohibitions. Others, again, who also translate it “Ye shall not eat by the blood,” take it as a prohibition of the idolatrous practice which obtained among the Zabii, who, to obtain favour from the demons, gathered the blood of the sacrifices which they offered to them into a vessel or a hole dug in the earth, and then sat around it to consume the sacrificial meal by the blood, thinking that thereby they fraternised with these demons. This seems to be favoured by the next clause. Neither shall ye use enchantment.- Better, ye shall use no enchantment. According to the authorities during the second Temple, this consisted in any one saying, “A morsel has dropped out of my mouth; the staff has fallen out of my hand; my child has called out behind me; a crow has cawed to me; a deer has crossed my path; a serpent crept on my right hand; a fox has gone by on my left;” and regarding these as bad omens for the day which has now began or for the work which he has just commenced. Or if he says to the man who raises the taxes, “Do not begin with me; it is still early in the day; it is the first of the month; it is the beginning of the week; I shall be unlucky the whole day, week, or month to be the first to be burdened;” this is enchantment. Nor observe times.—This, according to the same authorities, consists in “taking notice of the seasons and days, and in saying this is a good day to begin a journey, to-morrow will be lucky to make a purchase.”

Verse 26. Neither shall ye use enchantment] לא תנחשו lo thenachashu. Conjecture itself can do little towards a proper explanation of the terms used in this verse. נחש nachash; See Clarke on Genesis 3:1, we translate serpent, and with very little propriety; but though the word may not signify a serpent in that place, it has that signification in others. Possibly, therefore, the superstition here prohibited may be what the Greeks called Ophiomanteia, or divination by serpents. Nor observe times.] ולא תעוננו velo teonenu, ye shall not divine by clouds, which was also a superstition much in practice among the heathens, as well as divination by the flight of birds. What these prohibitions may particularly refer to, we know not. See Clarke on Genesis 41:8.

26. with the blood] The LXX. has here instead ‘upon the mountains,’ probably influenced by the phrase in Ezekiel 18:6; Ezekiel 22:9, which, however, according to Rob.-Sm. (Kinship, p. 312), should be assimilated to accord with Ezekiel 33:25. use enchantments] Employ divination. See e.g. Genesis 44:5, where the method was by hydromancy (Driver ad loc.). practise augury] The original meaning of the Heb. verb is uncertain, but probably its sense is to hum (as insects) or whisper (as leaves), and hence is applied to the low murmuring made by diviners. Augury in the etymological sense (inferences from marking the flight of birds) was practised in the East. See Driver, Deut. p. 225.

Certain pagan customs, several of them connected with magic, are here grouped together.

26. Neither… use enchantment — Literally, Ye shall not whisper, hence, divine, or give oracles.