Whoever of the house of Israel slaughtered an ox, sheep, or goat, either within or outside the camp, without bringing the animal to the tabernacle, to offer a sacrifice therefrom to the Lord, "blood was to be reckoned to him;" that is to say, as the following expression, "he hath shed blood," shows, such slaughtering was to be reckoned as the shedding of blood, or blood-guiltiness, and punished with extermination (see Genesis 17:14). The severity of this prohibition required some explanation, and this is given in the reason assigned in Leviticus 17:5-7, viz., "that the Israelites may bring their slain-offerings, which they slay in the open field, before the door of the tabernacle, as peace-offerings to Jehovah," and "no more offer their sacrifices to the שׂעירים, after whom they go a whoring" (Leviticus 17:7). This reason presupposes that the custom of dedicating the slain animals as sacrifices to some deity, to which a portion of them was offered, was then widely spread among the Israelites. It had probably been adopted from the Egyptians; though this is not expressly stated by ancient writers: Herodotus (i. 132) and Strabo (xv. 732) simply mentioning it as a Persian custom, whilst the law book of Manu ascribes it to the Indians. To root out this idolatrous custom from among the Israelites, they were commanded to slay every animal before the tabernacle, as a sacrificial gift to Jehovah, and to bring the slain-offerings, which they would have slain in the open field, to the priest at the tabernacle, as shelamim (praise-offerings and thank-offerings), that he might sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and burn the fat as a sweet-smelling savour for Jehovah (see Leviticus 3:2-5). "The face of the field" (Leviticus 17:5, as in Leviticus 14:7, Leviticus 14:53): the open field, in distinction from the enclosed space of the court of Jehovah's dwelling. "The altar of Jehovah" is spoken of in Leviticus 17:6 instead of "the altar" only (Leviticus 1:5; Leviticus 11:15, etc.), on account of the contrast drawn between it and the altars upon which they offered sacrifice to Seirim. שׂעירים, literally goats, is here used to signify daemones (Vulg.), "field-devils" (Luther), demons, like the שׂדים in Deuteronomy 32:17, who were supposed to inhabit the desert (Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 34:14), and whose pernicious influence they sought to avert by sacrifices. The Israelites had brought this superstition, and the idolatry to which it gave rise, from Egypt. The Seirim were the gods whom the Israelites worshipped and went a whoring after in Egypt (Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:7; Ezekiel 23:3, Ezekiel 23:8, Ezekiel 23:19, Ezekiel 23:21, Ezekiel 23:27). Both the thing and the name were derived from the Egyptians, who worshipped goats as gods (Josephus c. Revelation 2, 7), particularly Pan, who was represented in the form of a goat, a personification of the male and fertilizing principle in nature, whom they called Mendes and reckoned among the eight leading gods, and to whom they had built a splendid and celebrated temple in Thmuis, the capital of the Mendesian Nomos in Lower Egypt, and erected statues in the temples in all directions (cf. Herod. 2, 42, 46; Strabo, xvii. 802; Diod. Sic. i. 18). The expression "a statute for ever" refers to the principle of the law, that sacrifices were to be offered to Jehovah alone, and not to the law that every animal was to be slain before the tabernacle, which was afterwards repealed by Moses, when they were about to enter Canaan, where it could no longer be carried out (Deuteronomy 12:15).

Leviticus 17:13 Parallel Commentaries

which hunteth

Leviticus 7:26 Moreover you shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings.

hunteth [heb] hunteth any hunting
pour out

Deuteronomy 12:16,24 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth as water...

Deuteronomy 15:23 Only you shall not eat the blood thereof; you shall pour it on the ground as water.

1 Samuel 14:32-34 And the people flew on the spoil, and took sheep, and oxen, and calves, and slew them on the ground...

Job 16:18 O earth, cover not you my blood, and let my cry have no place.

Ezekiel 24:7 For her blood is in the middle of her; she set it on the top of a rock; she poured it not on the ground, to cover it with dust;