Instead, use it for food for your family in your hometown. Anyone, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat it, just as anyone may eat a gazelle or deer.
Parallel translations
- WEB You shall eat it within your gates. The unclean and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle, and as the deer.
- KJV Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, and as the hart.
- BSB Eat it within your gates; both the ceremonially unclean and clean may eat it as they would a gazelle or a deer.
- NKJV You may eat it within your gates; the unclean and the clean person alike may eat it, as if it were a gazelle or a deer.
- NASB You shall eat it within your gates; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as a gazelle or a deer.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A defective firstborn could still be eaten at home as ordinary food by clean and unclean alike. What was unfit for the altar could still nourish the family.
Overview
Animals with defects, though excluded from sacrifice, were not wasted but eaten as common meat within the town. The ceremonial distinctions of clean and unclean did not bar anyone from this ordinary meal. This shows the practical wisdom of the law, distinguishing the sacred offering from everyday provision while honoring God's gift of food.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 2
- Deut 12:15–16Notwithstanding, you may kill and eat meat within all your gates, after all the desire of your soul, according to Yahweh your God’s blessing which he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle, and as of the deer.
- Deut 12:21–22If the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to put his name there, is too far from you, then you shall kill of your herd and of your flock, which Yahweh has given you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your gates, after all the desire of your soul.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 15:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.