Only ye shall not eat the blood,.... All manner of blood being forbidden, of fowl or of beasts, whether slain for sacrifice or for common food:
ye shall pour it out upon the earth as water; which cannot be gathered up again for use, but is swallowed up in the earth.

BLOOD PROHIBITED. (Deuteronomy 12:16-25)
ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water--The prohibition against eating or drinking blood as an unnatural custom accompanied the announcement of the divine grant of animal flesh for food (Genesis 9:4), and the prohibition was repeatedly renewed by Moses with reference to the great objects of the law (Leviticus 17:12), the prevention of idolatry, and the consecration of the sacrificial blood to God. In regard, however, to the blood of animals slain for food, it might be shed without ceremony and poured on the ground as a common thing like water--only for the sake of decency, as well as for preventing all risk of idolatry, it was to be covered over with earth (Leviticus 17:13), in opposition to the practice of heathen sportsmen, who left it exposed as an offering to the god of the chase.

But blood was forbidden to be eaten (see at Leviticus 17:10.). The blood was to be poured out upon the earth like water, that it might suck it in, receive it into its bosom.