Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 19:26

"Ye shall not eat anything with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantments, nor practise augury." — Leviticus 19:26 (ASV)

You shall not eat anything with the blood. — According to the administrators of the law during the Second Temple, there are no less than five different things forbidden here. It prohibits:

1. Eating the flesh of a legally slaughtered animal as long as its life is not quite gone, or while the flesh is still trembling;
2. Eating the flesh of sacrificial animals while the blood is still in the sprinkling bowl, and before it has been sprinkled on the altar;
3. Eating the meat of mourners by the relatives when a member of the family has been publicly executed, and his blood has been shed;
4. Eating anything by the judicial court on the day when their sentence of death is being executed on the criminal; and
5. It warns the rebellious and gluttonous son not to eat immoderately by the penalty of blood.”

The ancient Chaldee Version, therefore, which translates it, “You shall not eat the flesh of any sacrifice while the blood is in the basin unsprinkled,” exhibits the second of these prohibitions involved in this interpretation. All five prohibitions presuppose the rendering of this phrase as, “You shall not eat by the blood,” which has the merit of being literal, while the Authorized Version follows the first of these five prohibitions.

Still others, who also translate it, “You shall not eat by the blood,” take it as a prohibition of the idolatrous practice that was common among the Zabii.

To obtain favor from the demons, the Zabii gathered the blood of the sacrifices they offered to them into a vessel or a hole dug in the earth. They then sat around it to consume the sacrificial meal by the blood, thinking that they thereby fraternized with these demons.

This interpretation seems to be favored by the next clause.

Neither shall you use enchantment. — A better translation is, you shall use no enchantment. According to the authorities during the Second Temple, this consisted in anyone saying, “A morsel has dropped out of my mouth; the staff has fallen out of my hand; my child has called out behind me; a crow has cawed to me; a deer has crossed my path; a serpent crept on my right hand; a fox has gone by on my left,” and regarding these as bad omens for the day that has now begun or for the work he has just started.

Or, if he says to the man who collects the taxes, “Do not begin with me; it is still early in the day; it is the first of the month; it is the beginning of the week; I shall be unlucky the whole day, week, or month to be the first to be burdened,” this is enchantment.

Nor observe times. — This, according to the same authorities, consists in “taking notice of the seasons and days, and in saying this is a good day to begin a journey, tomorrow will be lucky to make a purchase.”