Question:
I need help understanding the following. Please explain it on your Bible Answers page: “Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God…” (Deuteronomy 14:21).
Answer:
The Lord means just what He says. He told His people not to eat anything which died of itself but permitted them to give it to the stranger within their gates or to sell it to the foreigner. “But was not this inconsistent?”— Not at all. The stranger believed that such food was good and ate such food frequently. It was given or sold to him without deceit as the flesh of an animal that had died of itself. The Israelites were forbidden to eat blood, but that which died of itself contained the blood, but the other nations around them did not consider it wrong to eat the blood. In all cases, they evidently bought and sold such flesh for just what it was.
Many times, if reports are to be believed, meat is sold nowadays for fresh, healthy meat when it is the flesh of animals that died of disease. The great majority of all fish, lobsters, clams, crabs, oysters, shrimps, etc., die of themselves and are eaten with gusto by those who criticize the Lord’s directions in Deuteronomy 14:21. Few are the flesh eaters indeed that eat fish and shellfish which die of themselves by slow, lingering deaths, that find fault with the dealer for selling such.
