1And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
2“Speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the children of Israel and say to them: This is the thing that YHWH has commanded, saying:
3Any man from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox or a sheep or a goat in the camp or who slaughters outside the camp
17:3. Any man … who slaughters. Most sacrifices involve the ritual slaughter of an animal that is to be used for food. In Leviticus, YHWH forbids the slaughter of animals outside of a formal ritual setting. For Leviticus there is no such occupation as butcher. If one wants to eat meat, one must bring the animal to the priest, who sacrifices it in the prescribed manner at the altar, retains a portion of it for the sustenance of the priesthood, and gives back the rest for consumption. The priests eat their portion according to prescription as well: specifically, priests eat meat with unleavened bread. As with the laws of Exodus, the reasons for requiring ritual slaughter are not stated explicitly, but there appears to be more at stake than the support of the priesthood. In the initial state of creation in Genesis, humans are vegetarian. Genesis depicts animals, but not plants, as sharing with humans the quality of being living beings (nepeš 
ayy
h,Gen 1:20,21,24,30; 2:7,19). Following the flood, animals are permitted as food. Now the sacrificial laws of Leviticus recognize that this involves the taking of life, and they decree that life cannot be taken as a secular act of slaughter. It must be done in a setting that reflects sensitivity to what is at stake. An indicator that this is the orientation of the Levitical law is that it permits one to hunt game animals such as deer, which one cannot easily lead to an altar, but then one must perform the act of pouring off the blood of the animal because, it says, “the flesh’s life (nepeš) is in the blood” (17:11).
At several places in my comments on Leviticus, I have noted that we have lost the feeling of ritual as it was known in the biblical world. Here I would add that if we still had a greater feeling for ritual we would have more of a feeling for the life of an animal. For most humans in this age, we are farther removed from the life and death of the animals (and plants!) that we eat than in any previous generation. We buy meat in sealed packages, so that it no longer resembles the animal from which it came. We have lost the awareness of how this food came to be on our table. Part of life is the consumption of life-forms by other life-forms. But whether one is vegetarian or carnivorous, one will enrich one’s life—and understand better one’s place in the world—if one connects a ritual with that consumption. If it can no longer be sacrifice, then perhaps it can be saying grace, or a blessing, or occasionally visiting a farm or ranch and observing the animals and plants: watching, touching, listening to them.
4and has not brought it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to bring forward an offering to YHWH in front of YHWH’s Tabernacle: blood will be counted to that man. He has spilled blood. And that man will be cut off from among his people.
17:4. Tent of Meeting. There is a long additional line here in the Septuagint, Qumran, and Samaritan texts, which has been lost in the Masoretic Text. The verse reads: “and has not brought it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to make it a burnt offering or peace offering to YHWH to be acceptable for you as a pleasant smell, and he slaughters it outside and has not brought it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting …” The eye of the scribe writing the Masoretic Text apparently skipped the line because his eye jumped from one occurrence of the phrase “brought it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” to the next. This shows how much of a text can be changed by scribal error and is a warning to take account of all the available versions of the text. (It is also a reminder that systems of seeking patterns or codes by counting the text’s letters are erroneous. See the comment on Exod 1:5.)
17:4. blood will be counted to that man. He has spilled blood. This person has slaughtered an animal, but the text speaks of it as an equivalent of murdering a human! Why does this act merit such extraordinary severity? Because it merges two of the most essential commandments of the Torah. First, it involves taking a life without respect for life’s sanctity—as discussed in the comment on 17:3. And, second, it violates the law of centralization of worship, which is declared for the first time in this chapter. According to the law, one can sacrifice only at one place on earth: at the altar at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. If one wants to eat lamb or beef, one must bring one’s sheep or cow to that central altar. In the wilderness it is at the Tent. Later, in the land, it is at the Temple. (The Tent of Meeting is inside the Temple. See the comment on Exod 26:30.) But the all-important point is centralization of worship. As I commented earlier (Exod 26:6), centralization and monotheism go together: one God, one altar. Each town in Israel does not have its own altar or its own Tabernacle. This is explicitly forbidden here. In the books of Kings, it is the standard for judging every king of Israel and Judah: did he allow “high places” (Hebrew bmôt) outside of the Jerusalem Temple or not? The only two kings to get nearly perfect ratings (Hezekiah and Josiah) are the two kings who most zealously enforce centralization. Today, one does not see a multiplicity of synagogues, churches, or mosques and assume that this means that a multiplicity of gods is being worshiped. But in the biblical world, when monotheism is a new idea, the principle of one God–one Temple–one altar is presented as supremely important.
17:4. cut off from among his people. This may mean to die without heirs or not to be buried in the ancestral tomb or not to join one’s ancestors in an afterlife. See the comment on Exod 30:33.
5So that the children of Israel will bring their sacrifices—which they are making at the open field—and will bring them to YHWH, to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, to the priest, and make them sacrifices of peace offerings to YHWH.
6And the priest shall fling the blood on YHWH’s altar at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and burn the fat to smoke as a pleasant smell to YHWH.
7And they shall not make their sacrifices anymore to the satyrs, after whom they are whoring. This shall be an eternal law to them through their generations.
17:7. satyrs. It is not certain what these are. The term “satyrs” is used because the Hebrew term has to do with goats. They are mentioned in Isa 13:21; 34:14 and in 2 Chr 11:15.
8“And you shall say to them: Any man from the house of Israel and from the aliens who will reside among them who will make a burnt offering or a sacrifice
9and will not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to make it to YHWH: that man will be cut off from his people.
10“And any man from the house of Israel and from the aliens who will reside among them who will eat any blood: then I shall set my face against the person who eats the blood, and I shall cut him off from among his people.
17:10. person. This is very difficult to capture in translation. The word for “person,” Hebrew nepeš, is the same word that means “life” three times in v. 11. In the Hebrew, therefore, it is more obvious that the issue is that a living creature is eating blood, which bears the life of another living creature.
11Because the flesh’s life is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement over your lives, because it is the blood that makes atonement for life.
12On account of this I have said to the children of Israel: every person among you shall not eat blood, and the alien who resides among you shall not eat blood.
13“And any man from the children of Israel and from the aliens who reside among them who will hunt game, animal or bird, that may be eaten: he shall spill out its blood and cover it with dust.
14Because all flesh’s life: its blood is one with its life. So I say to the children of Israel: you shall not eat the blood of all flesh—because all flesh’s life: it is its blood. Everyone of those who eat it will be cut off.
15And any living being, whether a citizen or an alien, who will eat carcass or a torn animal shall wash his clothes and shall wash with water and will be impure until evening and then will be pure.
17:15. carcass or a torn animal. See the comments on Lev 7:24.
16And if he will not wash them and will not wash his flesh, then he shall bear his crime.”
