The third commandment is, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain"(5:11). This section of laws deals with the exclusiveness of the Lord and His worship as this pertains to Israel's separation from all other nations. The theme of refraining from Canaanite practices continues in this chapter. However here it is not the obviously idolatrous practices but the more subtle ones associated with Canaanite religion that Moses proscribed. The whole chapter deals with eating. The Hebrew verb bal(eat) occurs in verse 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, and 29.
14:1-2 Because the Israelites were God's sons (v. 1; i.e., because of their special intimate relationship with Yahweh) they were to eat and act as He directed here (cf. 1:31; 8:5). This the first of two affirmations of Israel being God's special possession, His chosen people, in Deuteronomy (cf. 26:18).157
Self-mutilation and shaving the forehead were pagan practices associated with idolatry. The Canaanites did these things to express passionate sorrow for the dead. Laceration may have been a seasonal rite in the Baal fertility cults as well.158
"The external appearance of the people should reflect their internal status as the chosen and holy people of God."159
14:3-21 The diet of the Canaanites also had connection with their religion. Perhaps some of what God forbade would have been unhealthful for the Israelites to eat (cf. Lev. 11).160However the main reason for the prohibitions seems to have been that certain animals did not conform to what the Israelites considered normal.161
One characteristic of all the forbidden birds, despite the imprecision of the names that describe them, seems to be that they all consumed carrion.162
"The ceremonial custom of boiling a kid in its mother's milk is known from the ancient Canaanite tablets found at Ugarit [i.e., the Ras Shamra Tablets]. Such a rite was superstitiously observed by the Canaanites, hoping that through magical acts they could increase fertility and productivity (14:21; Ex. 23:19; 34:26)."163
". . . various Canaanite cults regularly engaged in the practices of seething a kid in its mother's milk as a fertility rite of sympathetic magic intended to coerce the deity into granting fertility to the wives, fields, and flocks of the cults' adherents. Such rites of sympathetic magic worked' on the premise that the gods were in some way part of and subject to the same natural created order that human beings also inhabited. By finding the common natural connection points, human beings could push the right buttons' and thus manipulate the gods . . .
"Israelites do not, through an act of sympathetic magic, try to coercethe deity into blessing them with fertility for the year to come; but instead, afterthe year's crops have been harvested and whether that year's harvest has been fruitful or not, Israelites bring a tithe to God as an act of gratitude[cf. vv. 22-29]."164
Another view is that this prohibition taught the Israelites not to use what promotes life, milk, to destroy life.165
In the present dispensation all foods are clean (Mark 7:19; Acts 10:15; Rom. 14:14; et al.). However we too should avoid foods that are unhealthful since our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Moreover we should avoid practices that may lead us away from God's will or appear to others that we have departed from God's will.
