BLOOD. There are two respects in which the ordinances of the Old and New Testaments con cerning blood deserve notice here—the prohibition of its use as an article of food, and the appoint ment and significance of its use in the ritual of sacrifice ; both of which appear to rest on a com mon ground.
In Gen. ix. 4, where the use of animal food is allowed, it is first absolutely forbidden to eat flesh with its soul, its blood ;' which expression, were it otherwise obscure, is explained by the mode in which the same terms are employed in Dent. xii. 23. In the Mosaic law the prohibition is repeated with frequency and emphasis ; although it is gener ally introduced in connection with sacrifices, as in Lev. iii. 1 7 ; vii. 26 (in both which places blood is coupled in the prohibition with the fat of the victims); xvii. to-14 ; xix. 26 ; Dent. xii. 16-23 ; xv. 23. In cases where the prohibition is intro duced in connection with the lawful and unlawful articles of diet, the reason which is generally assigned in the text is, that ' the blood is the soul,' and it is ordered that it be poured on the ground ' like water. But where it is introduced in reference to the portions of the victim which were to be offered to the Lord, then the text, in addition to the former reason, insists that ' the blood expiates by the soul' (Lev. xvii. 11, 12).. This strict in junction not only applied to the Israelites, but even to the strangers residing among them. The penalty assigned to its transgression was the being cut off from the people ;' by which the punish ment of death appears to be intended (cf. Heb. x. 28), although it is difficult to ascertain whether it was inflicted by the sword or by stoning. It is observed by Michaelis (Mos. Recht. iv. 45) that the blood of fishes does not appear to be interdicted. The words in Lev. vii. 26 only expressly mention that of birds and cattle. This accords, however, with the reasons assigned for the prohibition of blood, so far as fishes could not be offered to the I.ord ; although they formed a significant offering
in heathen religions. To this is to be added, that the Apostles and elders, assembled in council at Jerusalem, when desirous of settling the extent to which the ceremonial observances were binding upon the converts to Christianity, renewed the injunction to abstain from blood, and coupled it with things offered to idols (Acts. xv. 29). It is perhaps worthy of notice here, that Mohammed, while professing to abrogate some of the dietary restrictions of the Jewish law (which he asserts were imposed on account of the sins of the Jews, Sura iv. 158), still enforces, among others, absti nence from blood and from things offered to idols (Quran, Sur. v. 4, vi. 146, ed. Fliigel).
In direct opposition to this emphatic prohibition of blood in the Mosaic law, the customs of unci vilized heathens sanctioned the cutting of slices from the living animal, and the eating of the flesh while quivering with life and dripping with blood. Even Saul's army committed this barbarity, as we read in r Sam. xiv. 32 ; and the prophet also lays it to the charge of the Jews in Ezek. xxxiii. 23.* This practice, according to Bruce's testimony, exists at present among the Abyssinians. More over, pagan religions, and that of the Phoenicians among the rest, appointed the eating and drinking of blood, mixed with wine, as a rite of idolatrous worship, and especially in the ceremonial of swear ing. To this the passage in Ps. xvi. 4 appears to allude (cf. J. D. Michaelis, Critfsch. Colleg. p. 108, where several testimonies on this subject are collected).
The appointment and significance of the use of blood in the ritual of sacrifice belongs indeed to this head ; but their further notice will be more appro priately pursued in the article SACRIFICE.-J. N.