19 The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Yahweh your God. "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid. The threefold repetition of the command reminds us that a serious matter is spoken of, whereas it would be a light and almost frivolous one, if, as some suppose, it is merely the prohibition of a somewhat unwholesome food. But the Jews, not considering its intent, and affecting sanctity, as they do, in trifling puerilities, dare not taste of cheese together with kid, or lamb's flesh, until they have well cleaned their teeth. I have no doubt, however, but that this prohibition relates to the sacrifices, for in the first passage quoted, it is added in connection with the offering of the first-fruits; and in the second, we read as follows: "The first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Nor shalt thou seethe a kid in his mother's milk;" and so also in the third passage: "Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself, etc., for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; nor shalt thou seethe a kid in his mother's milk." I allow indeed that Moses sometimes mixes together precepts respecting different things; but this running context shews that this precept is delivered among the ceremonies, and must therefore be reckoned to be a part of the legal service. Whence I conclude, that the people are not only interdicted from eating this sort of food, as if they were to partake of flesh steeped in blood; but that they should not pollute the sacrifices by the carnal mixture. It is however probable, that meat seasoned with milk was accounted a delicacy; but inasmuch as they might grow cruel, if they ate of a lamb or kid in its mother's milk, God forbade to be offered to Himself, what was not allowable even in their common meals. The exposition of some, that kids were excluded from their tables until they were weaned, is not agreeable to reason; because they then begin to have a goatish flavor. But the reason is a very appropriate one, i.e., that God would not admit a monstrous thing in His sacrifices, that the flesh of the young should be cooked in its mother's milk, and thus, as it were, in its own blood.
The first of the firstfruits of thy land - The "best," or "chief" of the firstfruits, that is, the two wave loaves described Leviticus 23:17. As the preceding precept appears to refer to the Passover, so it is likely that this refers to Pentecost. They are called in Leviticus, "the firstfruits unto the Load;" and it is reasonable that they should here be designated the "chief" of the firstfruits. If, with some, we suppose the precept to relate to the offerings of firstfruits in general, the command is a repetition of Exodus 22:29.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk - This precept is repeated. See the marginal references. If we connect the first of the two preceding precepts with the Passover, and the second with Pentecost, it seems reasonable to connect this with the Feast of Tabernacles. The only explanation which accords with this connection is one which refers to a superstitious custom connected with the harvest; in which a kid was seethed in its mother's milk to propitiate in some way the deities, and the milk was sprinkled on the fruit trees, fields and gardens, as a charm to improve the crops of the coming year. Others take it to be a prohibition of a custom of great antiquity among the Arabs, of preparing a gross sort of food by stewing a kid in milk, with the addition of certain ingredients of a stimulating nature: and others take it in connection with the prohibitions to slaughter a cow and a calf, or a ewe and her lamb, on the same day Leviticus 22:28, or to take a bird along with her young in the nest Deuteronomy 22:6. It is thus understood as a protest against cruelty and outraging the order of nature.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk - This passage has greatly perplexed commentators; but Dr. Cudworth is supposed to have given it its true meaning by quoting a MS. comment of a Karaite Jew, which he met with, on this passage. "It was a custom of the ancient heathens, when they had gathered in all their fruits, to take a kid and boil it in the milk of its dam; and then, in a magical way, to go about and besprinkle with it all their trees and fields, gardens and orchards; thinking by these means to make them fruitful, that they might bring forth more abundantly in the following year." - Cudworth on the Lord's Supper, 4th.
I give this comment as I find it, and add that Spenser has shown that the Zabii used this kind of magical milk to sprinkle their trees and fields, in order to make them fruitful. Others understand it of eating flesh and milk together; others of a lamb or a kid while it is sucking its mother, and that the paschal lamb is here intended, which it was not lawful to offer while sucking.
After all the learned labor which critics have bestowed on this passage, and by which the obscurity in some cases is become more intense, the simple object of the precept seems to be this: "Thou shalt do nothing that may have any tendency to blunt thy moral feelings, or teach thee hardness of heart." Even human nature shudders at the thought of causing the mother to lend her milk to seethe the flesh of her young one! We need go no farther for the delicate, tender, humane, and impressive meaning of this precept.
The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his (l) mother's milk.
(l) Meaning, that no fruit should be taken before just time: and by this all cruel and wanton appetites are controlled.
The first of the first fruits of thy land,.... Both of the barley and wheat harvest, and of the wine and oil; yea, Jarchi says, the seventh year was obliged to first fruits; and Josephus (d) relates, that the Jews were so tenacious of this law, that even in the famine in the time of Claudius Caesar, the first fruits were brought to the temple, and were not meddled with:
thou shall bring into the house of the Lord thy God; to the tabernacle, during the standing of that, and the temple when that was built; which were the perquisites of the priests who officiated in the house and service of God: so Pliny says (e) of the ancient Romans, that they tasted not of the new fruits or wines before the first fruits were offered to the priests, which seems to have been borrowed from hence:
thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk: and so a calf, or a lamb (f), as Jarchi interprets it; which some understand of slaying a young kid and its dam together, and so is a law against cruelty, like that law of not taking the dam with the young, on finding a bird's nest, Deuteronomy 22:6 others, of killing, dressing, and eating a kid, while it sucks the milk of its mother, before it is eight days old, and so a law against luxury; but the Jews generally understand it of boiling, or eating the flesh of any creature and milk together (g): so the Targum of Onkelos paraphrases it,"ye shall not eat flesh with milk;''and the Targum of Jonathan is,"ye shall neither boil nor eat the flesh and the milk mixed together:''hence, according to the rules they give, the flesh of any beast, or of a fowl, is not to be set upon a table on which cheese is (being made of milk), lest they should be eaten together; nor may cheese be eaten after flesh until some considerable time, and then, if there is any flesh sticks between a man's teeth, he must remove it, and wash and cleanse his mouth; nor may cheese be eaten on a table cloth on which meat is, nor be cut with a knife that flesh is cut with (h): so careful are they of breaking this law, as they understand it: but the words are, doubtless, to be taken literally, of not boiling a kid in its mother's milk; and is thought by many to refer to some custom of this kind, either among the Israelites, which they had somewhere learnt, or among the idolatrous Heathens, and therefore cautioned against; Maimonides and Abarbinel both suppose it was an idolatrous rite, but are not able to produce an instance of it out of any writer of theirs or others: but Dr. Cudworth has produced a passage out of a Karaite author (i), who affirms,"it was a custom of the Heathens at the ingathering of their fruits to take a kid and seethe it in the milk of the dam, and then, in a magical way, go about and besprinkle all their trees, fields, gardens, and orchards, thinking by this means they should make them fructify, and bring forth fruit again more abundantly the next year:''and the Targum of Jonathan on Exodus 34:26 seems to have respect to this, where, having paraphrased the words as here quoted above, adds,"lest I should destroy the fruit of your trees with the unripe grape, the shoots and leaves together:''and if this may be depended upon, the law comes in here very aptly, after the feast of ingathering, and the bringing in the first fruits of the land into the Lord's house.
(d) Antiqu. l. 3. c. 15. sect. 3. (e) Nat. Hist. l. 18. c. 2. (f) Vid. T. Bab. Cholin. fol. 114. 1. (g) Tikkune Zohar, Correct. 14. fol. 26. 1. (h) Schulchan Aruch, par. 2. Yore Deah, Hilchot Bashar Bechaleb, c. 88. sect. 1. & 89. sect. 1. 4. (i) Apud Gregory's Notes & Observ. c. 19. p. 97, 98.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk--A prohibition against imitating the superstitious rites of the idolaters in Egypt, who, at the end of their harvest, seethed a kid in its mother's milk and sprinkled the broth as a magical charm on their gardens and fields, to render them more productive the following season. [See on Deuteronomy 14:21].
The next command in Exodus 23:19 has reference to the feast of Harvest, or feast of Weeks. In "the first-fruits of thy land" there is an unmistakeable allusion to "the first-fruits of thy labours" in Exodus 23:16. It is true the words, "the first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God," are so general in their character, that we can hardly restrict them to the wave-loaves to be offered as first-fruits at the feast of Weeks, but must interpret them as referring to all the first-fruits, which they had already been commanded not to delay to offer (Exodus 22:29), and the presentation of which is minutely prescribed in Numbers 18:12-13, and Deuteronomy 26:2-11, - including therefore the sheaf of barley to be offered in the second day of the feast of unleavened bread (Leviticus 23:9.). At the same time the reference to the feast of Weeks is certainly to be retained, inasmuch as this feast was an express admonition to Israel, to offer the first of the fruits of the Lord. In the expression בּכּוּרי ראשׁית, the latter might be understood as explanatory of the former and in apposition to it, since they are both of them applied to the first-fruits of the soil (vid., Deuteronomy 26:2, Deuteronomy 26:10, and Numbers 18:13). But as ראשׁית could hardly need any explanation in this connection, the partitive sense is to be preferred; though it is difficult to decide whether "the first of the first-fruits" signifies the first selection from the fruits that had grown, ripened, and been gathered first-that is to say, not merely of the entire harvest, but of every separate production of the field and soil, according to the rendering of the lxx ἀπαρχηὰς τῶν πρωτογεννημάτων τῆς γῆς, - or whether the word ראשׁית is used figuratively, and signifies the best of the first-fruits. There is no force in the objection offered to the former view, that "in no other case in which the offering of first-fruits generally is spoken of, is one particular portion represented as holy to Jehovah, but the first-fruits themselves are that portion of the entire harvest which was holy to Jehovah." For, apart from Numbers 18:12, where a different rendering is sometimes given to ראשׁית, the expression מראשׁית in Deuteronomy 26:2 shows unmistakeably that only a portion of the first of all the fruit of the ground had to be offered to the Lord. On the other hand, this view is considerably strengthened by the fact, that whilst בּכּוּר, בּכּוּרים signify those fruits which ripened first, i.e., earliest, ראשׁית is used to denote the ἀπαρχή, the first portion or first selection from the whole, not only in Deuteronomy 26:2, Deuteronomy 26:10, but also in Leviticus 23:10, and most probably in Numbers 18:12 as well. - Now if these directions do not refer either exclusively or specially to the loaves of first-fruits of the feast of Weeks, the opinion which has prevailed from the time of Abarbanel to that of Knobel, that the following command, "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk," refers to the feast of Ingathering, is deprived of its principal support. And any such allusion is rendered very questionable by the fact, that in Deuteronomy 14:21, where this command is repeated, it is appended to the prohibition against eating the flesh of an animal that had been torn to pieces. Very different explanations have been given to the command. In the Targum, Mishnah, etc., it is regarded as a general prohibition against eating flesh prepared with milk. Luther and others suppose it to refer to the cooking of the kid, before it has been weaned from its mother's milk. But the actual reference is to the cooking of a kid in the milk of its own mother, as indicating a contempt of the relation which God has established and sanctified between parent and young, and thus subverting the divine ordinances. As kids were a very favourite food (Genesis 27:9, Genesis 27:14; Judges 6:19; Judges 13:15; 1-Samuel 16:20), it is very likely that by way of improving the flavour they were sometimes cooked in milk. According to Aben Ezra and Abarbanel, this was a custom adopted by the Ishmaelites; and at the present day the Arabs are in the habit of cooking lamb in sour milk. A restriction is placed upon this custom in the prohibition before us, but there is no intention to prevent the introduction of a superstitious usage customary at the sacrificial meals of other nations, which Spencer and Knobel have sought to establish as at all events probable, though without any definite historical proofs, and for the most part on the strength of far-fetched analogies.
Some of the Gentiles, at the end of their harvest, seethed a kid in it's dam's milk, and sprinkled that milk - pottage in a magical way upon their gardens and fields, to make them fruitful. But Israel must abhor such foolish customs. Is not this rather forbidden, as having some appearance of cruelty?
*More commentary available at chapter level.