Permission to eat meat did not completely cancel out God's expectation for humans to respect "nephesh" in the animals. Thus, the restriction against eating blood, which contains the "nephesh" of an animal, is still in place.
Another instance of the continuing expectation of people honoring "nephesh" in the animals is a prohibition found in Exodus 23:19: "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk." This prohibition is repeated in Exodus 34:26 and Deuteronomy 14:21.
This prohibition essentially stands for a more general restriction against cruelty to animals. There's just something not right, something that seems inhumane, about taking a young animal and cooking it in its mother's milk, which is intended to be life-nourishing, not life-ending. Furthermore, because of "nephesh" there is a tender relationship between most animals and their mothers, a bond that is associated with so many of the most valued dimensions and features of human relationships. Only cold-hearted, intentional disregard for all of this would permit someone to treat an animal in such a fashion.
The bottom line is that we are indeed permitted to eat animals, but not permitted to use inhumane ways of killing them. Of course, there surely are numerous other ways to treat animals inhumanely short of actually taking their lives. Those are not to be part of our stewardship of the animals either.
Proverbs 12:10 positively summarizes our responsibility to treat animals humanely in these words: "A righteous man cares for the needs of his animals". The old King James Version rendering comes a little closer to capturing the essence of all that's included in this topic. The KJV says: "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast." The word life in the original is "nephesh."
2 comments:
From Denise Sherman--thank you Pastor Randy for sharing this week on nephesh. I did some extra research on it and found it very interesting. What do you think the original intent of animals was? Before death entered the picture? Also what is your view on hunting for sport?
On a lighter note--when I came home from church Sunday I told my dog about nephesh and gave her an extra pat and hug. :-)
After being perplexed about the carnivorous meat eating habits of animals we see today, and thinking about all the body parts they have that allow them to kill and eat meat I began looking deeper. The following link is lengthy but gives some very good insights and biblical probabilites for animal behavior before and after the Fall.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v5/i2/diet.asp
"Creation’s original diet and the changes at the Fall" by James Stambaugh, Institute for Creation Research
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