V. 4. _But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat._ 24. What we have heard so far, referred to domestic matters; now God adds a commandment pertaining to civil government. Since it was no more a sin to kill an ox or a sheep for food than it was to pluck a flower or an herb, growing in the field, there was some danger that men might misuse this God-given power over the beasts and go beyond it even to the shedding of human blood. Hence, he now adds a new law, that human blood must not be shed, and at the same time he curtails the liberty of eating flesh; he forbids them to eat flesh which has not first been drained of blood. 25. The Hebrew text presents many difficulties, and, for this reason, interpreters are at variance. It is needless to recite all renderings of this verse. I steadily follow the rule that the words must explain the things, not the things the words. Hence, I spend no time upon the ideas of those who explain the words according to their own inclinations, making them serve the preconceived notions which they bring to their literature. 26. Let us first look at the meaning of the words. _Rephesh_ properly denotes a body with a soul, or a living animal, such as the ox, the sheep, man, etc. It denotes not merely the body, but a living body, as when Christ says: I lay down my life for the sheep, Jn 10, 15. Here the word "life" means nothing else than the life animating the body. _Basar_, however, means flesh, which is a part of the material element, and yet has its breath and its energy, not from the body, but from the soul. For the flesh or the body, of itself and without the soul, is an inanimate thing, like a log or a stone; but when it is filled with the breath of the soul, then its fluids and all bodily forces assume activity. 27. God here forbids the eating of a body which still contains the stirring, moving, living soul, as the hawk devours chickens, and the wolf sheep, without killing them, but while still alive. Such cruelty is here forbidden by Jehovah, who sets bounds to the privilege of slaughtering, lest it be done in so beastly a manner that living bodies or portions thereof be devoured. The lawful manner of slaughtering is to be observed, such as was followed at the altar and in religious rites, where the beast, having been slain without cruelty and duly cleansed from blood, was finally offered to God. I hold that the simple and true meaning of the text, which is also given by some Jewish teachers, is that we must not eat raw flesh and members still palpitating, as did the Laestrygones and the Cyclopes. V. 5. _And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it: and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man._