Texts in Conversation
Ezekiel 44 repeats the rule in Genesis 9 that the life in the blood must not be eaten. Genesis gives this command to all people after the flood, but Ezekiel emphasizes it in a priestly and ritual setting where blood and fat belong to God alone.
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Genesis 9:4
Hebrew Bible
2 Every living creature of the earth and every bird of the sky will be terrified of you. Everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea are under your authority. 3 You may eat any moving thing that lives. As I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. 4 “But you must not eat meat with its life (that is, its blood) in it. 5 For your lifeblood I will surely exact punishment, from every living creature I will exact punishment. From each person I will exact punishment for the life of the individual since the man was his relative.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Ezekiel 44:7
Hebrew Bible
6 Say to the rebellious, to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Enough of all your abominable practices, O house of Israel! 7 When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate it—even my house—when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices. 8 You have not kept charge of my holy things, but you have assigned foreigners to keep charge of my sanctuary for you.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Exodus 12:9: 'raw' ... The Masoretic cantillation puts a stop after 'raw,' but I take 'raw or cooked' as a single phrase. Since this would seem to exclude all meat, however, 'cooked' is immediately limited by 'boiled in water'. Although it occurs only here in Biblical Hebrew, its meaning is relatively assured; compare Arabic 'raw' (ibn Ezra). Why is this proscription necessary? Raw meat is forbidden in all situations (compare Leviticus 17:15), since it contains blood and fat (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 3:17; 7:23-26; 17:13-14; Deuteronomy 12:16, 23; compare 1 Samuel 14:32-34), which are Yahweh's food (Ezekiel 44:7). Perversely, many scholars have inferred from 12:9 that raw meat was sometimes eaten. The search for Near Eastern parallels has been disappointing, however. Segal invokes a Sumerian description of Amorites eating uncooked meat, but this source, like the 'St. Nilus' account of the early Arabs' consumption of raw camel, is tainted with xenophobia ..."
Propp, William Henry
Exodus 1-18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(pp. 394-395) Doubleday, 1999
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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