John Gill Commentary Deuteronomy 14

You are the children of the Lord your God
Some of them were so by the special grace of adoption, and all of them by national adoption; which was the peculiar privilege of the people of Israel, and laid them under great obligation to honour and obey the Lord their God, who stood in the relation of a father to them, and they of children to him, (Malachi 1:6) . The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it "beloved children"; so the apostle calls the saints; the "dear children of God", who therefore ought to be followers of him, (Ephesians 5:1) and for a like reason this relation is observed here, namely, to quicken a regard to the exhortations of the Lord, his cautions, commands, laws, and ordinances, particularly to what follows:

You shall not cut yourselves ;
for the dead, as appears from the next clause, as the Heathens did, who not only tore their garments, but their flesh in several parts of their bodies, in their mouths, cheeks, breasts ^F18 ; and used other extravagant signs of mourning, which the apostle cautions against, (1 Thessalonians 4:13) and were condemned by the Heathens themselves ^F19 .

Though some think this refers to incisions the Heathens made in their flesh to the honour of their gods, cutting the names of them therein to whom they devoted themselves; or lashing their bodies at the worship of them, as the worshippers of Baal did when they called upon him, (1 Kings 18:28) and so the Jerusalem Targum, ``make not marks, marks,'' that is, here and there, in many places, or bruises black and blue by striping and beating themselves, for strange worship, or at it, in honour of their gods; but the former sense seems best to agree with what follows; see (Leviticus 19:28) ,

nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead ;
by shaving the forepart of their head or their eyebrows, or both, which used to be done in lamentations for the dead; see (Jeremiah 16:6Jeremiah 16:7) if this could be thought to have any respect to rites and ceremonies used in the worship of dead and lifeless idols, the customs of the Egyptians might be referred to, who are said to shave their heads and their eyebrows in their sacred rites to Isis ^F20 .

FOOTNOTES:

• F18: Vid. Virgil. Aeneid. 12. ver. 870, 871. and Servium in Aeneid. 1. ver. 78. and in l. 12.
• F19: Vid. Cicero de Leg. l. 2. c. 23. and Tusculan. Quaest. l. 3. c. 27.
• F20: Ambros. Epist. l. 4. c. 30. p. 259.

For you are an holy people unto the Lord your God
Set apart by him from all other people, and devoted to his worship and service, and many of them were sanctified and made holy in a special and spiritual sense; and therefore should not conform to the customs of Gentiles, whether in their extravagant mourning for the dead, or in their religious services; see (Deuteronomy 7:6) ,

and the Lord has chosen thee to be a peculiar people, above all the
nations that [are] upon the earth ;
to be his peculiar treasure, to be his peculiar servants and worshippers, to enjoy peculiar blessings and privileges, and behave in a peculiar manner different from all other people; and have no connection with them, especially in things sacred; and, in order to keep them a distinct peculiar people from all others, a peculiar diet was appointed them, that so being prohibited to eat such things as others did, they might be kept out of their company and conversation, and so from being drawn into their idolatrous practices; the rules concerning which follow; see (Deuteronomy 7:6) .

You shall not eat any abominable thing .
] That is so either in its own nature, or because forbidden by the Lord; what are such are declared in the following verses.

These are the beasts which they shall eat That is, which they might lawfully eat of, which were allowed for their food; for they were not obliged to eat of them if they did not choose it:

the ox, the sheep, and the goat ; which were creatures used in sacrifice, and the only ones, yet nevertheless they might be used for food if chosen.

The hart, the roebuck, and the fallow deer
All of the deer kind, and very agreeable food; harts were very common in the land of Canaan and parts adjacent; Aelianus says ^F21 harts are bred in the great mountains in Syria, Amanus, Lebanon, and Carmel: the roebuck, or "dorcas", from which a good woman had her name, (Acts 9:36) is spoken of by Martial ^F23 as very delicious food, and so are fallow deer; the word "jachmur", here used, having the signification of redness in it, may be used for that sort which are called red deer: it is observed that in the Arabic language it is used for an animal with two horns, living in the woods, not unlike a hart, but swifter than that; and it is asked, is it not the "aloe" or "elch" ^F24 ?

and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois ;
the wild goat is reckoned by Pliny ^F25 among the half wild creatures in Africa; according to the philosopher ^F26 there are none but in Syria, on which Canaan bordered, and were very remarkable ones, having ears a span and nine inches long, and some reached to the ground. The Hebrew name for this creature is "akko"; and there is a fourfooted wild beast, by the Tartarians called "akkyk", and by the Turks "akoim", and which with the Scythians and Sarmatians are to be met with in flocks; it is between a hart and a ram, its body whitish, and the flesh exceeding sweet ^F1 ; it seems to be the same with the "tragelaphus", of which there were in Arabia, as Diodorus Siculus ^F2 says; the next is the "pygarg", which we so render from the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, or white buttocks, so called from the hinder part of it being white; a species of the eagle with a white tail is called a "pygarg", but here a four footed animal is meant; and which is mentioned as such, along with hinds, does, and goats, by Herodotus ^F3 , Aelian ^F4 , and Pliny ^F5 : it has its name "dishon", in Hebrew, from its ash colour, and the "tragelaphus", or goat deer, has part of its back ash coloured, and has ash coloured spots or streaks on its sides ^F6 : some take it to be the "strepsiceros", a kind of buck or goat with writhed horns, which the Africans, as Pliny says ^F7 , call "addaca", which is thought by some to be a corruption of "al-dashen", so Junius; the Targum of Jonathan takes it for the "unicorn" or "rhinoceros"; and the Talmudists say ^F8 that the unicorn, though it has but one horn, is free, i.e. lawful to be eaten:

the "wild ox" was common in Arabia; Strabo ^F9 speaks of multitudes of wild oxen in some parts of Arabia, on the flesh of which and other animals the Arabians live; in the Septuagint version it is called the "oryx", which is a creature that has but one horn, and divides the hoof ^F11 , and so might be eaten; (See Gill on Isaiah 51:20), the last, the "chamois", has a French name, and is a creature of the goat kind, from whose skin the chamois leather is made; in the figure of its body it seems to approach very much to the stag kind ^F12 ; perhaps it is the same with the "cemas" of Aelian ^F13 , mentioned by him along with roebucks. Some take it to be the "tarandus", of which Pliny says ^F14 it is of the size of an ox, has a head bigger than a hart, and not unlike it; its horns are branched, hoofs cloven, and is hairy like a bear. In the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan this is the "pygarg";

these several sorts of beasts were allowed to be eaten; the three first there is no difficulty about them, but the other seven it is hard to determine what they are, at least some of them. Dr. Shaw ^F15 thinks that the deer, the antelope, the wild bear, the goat deer, the white buttocks, the buffalo, and jeraffa, may lay in the best claim to the "ailee", "tzebi", "yachmur", "akkub", "dishon", "thau", and "zomer", here.

FOOTNOTES:

• F21: Hist. Animal. l. 5. c. 56.
• F23: "Delicium parvo" Epigram. l. 13. 93.
• F24: Castel. Lex. Polyglott. Col. 1. 294.
• F25: Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 53.
• F26: Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 8. c. 28.
• F1: Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 415.
• F2: Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 134. Vid. Plin. l. 8. c. 33.
• F3: Melpomene, sive, l. 4. c. 192.
• F4: Hist. Animal l. 7. c. 19.
• F5: Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 53.
• F6: Calmet's Dictionary on the word "Pygarg".
• F7: Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 39.
• F8: T. Bab. Cholin, fol. 59. 2.
• F9: Geograph. l. 16. p. 530.
• F11: Aristot. Hist. Animal, l. 2. c. 1.
• F12: Supplement to Chambers's Dictionary on the word "Rupricapra".
• F13: Hist. Animal. l. 14. c. 14.
• F14: Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 34. 34.
• F15: Travels, p. 418.