Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 17:7

"And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the he-goats, after which they play the harlot. This shall be a statute forever unto them throughout their generations." — Leviticus 17:7 (ASV)

And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils. —The word (sçirim) here translated “devils,” literally denotes hairy or shaggy goats, and then goat-like deities, or demons. The Egyptians, and other nations of antiquity, worshipped goats as gods. Not only was there a celebrated temple in Thmuis, the capital of the Mendesian Nomos in Lower Egypt, dedicated to the goat-image Pan, whom they called Mendes, and worshipped as the oracle, and as the fertilizing principle in nature, but they erected statues of him everywhere.

Hence the Pan, Silenus, satyrs, fauns, and the woodland gods among the Greeks and Romans; and hence, too, the goat-like form of the devil, with a tail, horns, and cloven feet, which prevailed in medieval Christianity, and which may still be seen in some European cities. The terror which the devil, appearing in this Pan-like form, created among those who were thought to have seen him, has given rise to our expression panic. This is the form of idolatrous worship which the Jews brought with them from Egypt, and to which reference is continually made (Ezekiel 20:7; Ezekiel 23:3 and following; and especially 2 Chronicles 11:15).

The expression “and they shall no more offer” shows that the Israelites were until then in the habit of first dedicating their ordinary food to these deities; while the words “gone a whoring” indicate the orgies connected with this form of idol worship.

It has been argued that the demand to offer up, in so confined a space as the entrance of the sanctuary, the domestic animals intended for the daily consumption of more than 600,000 people, imposed a task upon them which it was impossible for them to carry out. Hence it has been argued that the injunction here (Leviticus 17:2–7) must refer to sacrifices.

But this difficulty arises from importing our modern notions into the ancient mode of living. The ancient Israelites, like modern Orientals, especially nomadic tribes, ate very little meat apart from the seasons of sacrifice, which were occasions for feasting.

Besides, those who raise this difficulty ignore the fact that the injunction in question is restricted to three kinds of animals. They ignore that none of the wild clean quadrupeds (such as stags, roes, and so on), nor any birds (such as pigeons, turtledoves, and so on), which formed an essential part of the daily diet, are included here. They also ignore that even the three kinds of sacrificial quadrupeds only come within this restriction when they are qualified by age (which was within two years) and by physical condition, which required them to have no external defect (such as blindness in one eye, lameness in one foot, and so on) to be offered first to the Lord.

Moreover, the injunction was only intended to operate temporarily, while the Jews sojourned and wandered in the wilderness. There, besides their propensity to sacrifice these animals to idols, they would have been in danger of extirpating their most useful animals. The law was repealed when the Israelites entered the Promised Land .