Leviticus 20:25

Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(25) Ye shall therefore put difference.—Better, Ye shall therefore separate. It is the same word which is used at the end of the preceding verse, and which is rendered “separate” in the Authorised Version. It is important that the word should be translated by the same expression, since it not only shows the intimate connection between the two verses, but brings out more forcibly the reason for the exhortation in the verse before us. Because the Lord has separated or distinguished the Israelites from all nations, and is about to give them the promised land, therefore the Israelites are to separate or to distinguish between the clean and unclean animals, as ordained in Leviticus 11. By strictly following out the dietary laws, the Israelites will always be able to keep separate from all other nations (Daniel 1:8).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

20:10-27 These verses repeat what had been said before, but it was needful there should be line upon line. What praises we owe to God that he has taught the evil of sin, and the sure way of deliverance from it! May we have grace to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things; may we have no fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, but reprove them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The distinction between clean and unclean for the whole people, and not for any mere section of it, was one great typical mark of "the kingdom of priests, the holy nation." See the Leviticus 11:42 note.

Leviticus 20:25

Any manner of living thing that creepeth - Rather, any creeping thing; that is, any vermin. See Leviticus 11:20-23. The reference in this verse is to dead animals, not to the creatures when alive.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24. I … have separated you from other people—Their selection from the rest of the nations was for the all-important end of preserving the knowledge and worship of the true God amid the universal apostasy; and as the distinction of meats was one great means of completing that separation, the law about making a difference between clean and unclean beasts is here repeated with emphatic solemnity.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. As things which by my sentence I have made unclean, and which you must avoid as such.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean,.... The ten clean ones, as Aben Ezra observes, and all the rest that are unclean, according to the law before given, Leviticus 11:3, by using the one for food, and not the other, and so the Targum of Jonathan, ye shall separate between the beast which is fit for food, and that which is not fit for food:

and between unclean fowls and clean; and which the same Targum interprets, what is unfit to eat and what is fit, even all that are particularly mentioned as unclean, and not fit for food, in Leviticus 11:13 and all the rest not excepted to as clean and fit for food, which was one way and means God made use of to separate them from other nations, and so preserve them from their idolatrous and evil works:

and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground; that is, by eating them, contrary to the command of God, which would make them abominable in his sight; see Leviticus 11:43; every sin or transgression of this law being so to him:

which I have separated from you as unclean; which by law he had commanded them to abstain from the use of, as clean, and not fit to be eaten.

Geneva Study Bible

Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls {k} abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.

(k) By eating them contrary to my commandment.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. The injunction that careful discrimination must be employed in the matter of clean and unclean food must, as Wellh. (Composition d. Hex. etc., p. 158, Berlin, 1889) and others point out, in its original context have been accompanied by detailed directions such as now are found in ch. 11.

Leviticus 20:25-26 in their present form are to be compared with Leviticus 11:43-45. See note there.

Leviticus 20:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The list of punishments concludes, like the prohibitions in Leviticus 18:24., with exhortations to observe the commandments and judgments of the Lord, and to avoid such abominations (on Leviticus 18:22 cf. Leviticus 18:3-5, Leviticus 18:26, Leviticus 18:28, Leviticus 18:30; and on Leviticus 18:23 cf. Leviticus 18:3 and Leviticus 18:24). The reason assigned for the exhortations is, that Jehovah was about to give them for a possession the fruitful land, whose inhabitants He had driven out because of their abominations, and that Jehovah was their God, who had separated Israel from the nations. For this reason (Leviticus 18:25) they were also to sever (make distinctions) between clean and unclean cattle and birds, and not make their souls (i.e., their persons) abominable through unclean animals, with which the earth swarmed, and which God had "separated to make unclean," i.e., had prohibited them from eating or touching when dead, because they defiled (see ch. 11). For (Leviticus 18:26) they were to be holy, because Jehovah their God was holy, who had severed them from the nations, to belong to Him, i.e., to be the nation of His possession (see Exodus 19:4-6).