What does the Bible mean when it says, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.”? (Ex 23:19)
By Peter Salemi
There have been many theories about Exodus 23:19. Many people interpret this verse to mean that God does not allow us to eat meat with dairy. The most common explanation for this verse is that there was a Canaanite fertility ritual in which a baby goat was boiled in its mother’s milk then the milk was sprinkled on the fields believing this would bless the harvest receiving a bountiful crop. Many people believe that God was preventing Israel from doing this-turning his feasts into a fertility ritual festival like the pagans.
Here are the many possible reasons given by commentators:
1. Because it was an idolatrous practice.
2. Because it was a magical (occult) practice to try to make the land more productive.
3. Because it was cruel to destroy a baby goat in the very milk which sustained it.
4. Because milk and meat are difficult to digest.
5. Because it shows contempt for the parent-child relationship.
6. Because it would symbolically profane the Feast of Ingathering.
7. Because God wanted them to cook with olive oil, not butter.
8. Because it was too luxurious or Epicurean.
Norman Geisler concludes in his Book When Critics Ask, “The truth is that we do not know for sure why God commanded this.” (pp.80-81).
Some cite archeological proof that this meant something connected with pagan fertility rites but these claims are “dubious” at best. One author says, “I searched through the entire databank looking for ‘goat,’ ‘kid,’ ‘milk’ and have found nothing to support this notion, yet it keeps coming up. In the entire Ugaritic corpus ‘kid/goat’ and ‘milk’ do not occur in the same stanza or poem.” (Article: What evidence is there that boiling a kid in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19) was a pagan practice? Biblical Hermeneutics, emphasis added). In the end one cannot find any proof for any of these theories-all are just pure speculation.
A Contradiction?
There is an interesting scripture that seems to contradict Exodus 23:19. In Genesis the 18th chapter we see the “…LORD appeared unto him [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;” (v.1) Abraham offered them food, and the three men (one who was the “Lord” God) said to him, “So do, as thou hast said.” (v.5).
Notice what he has prepared for them, “And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it.
“And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.” (vv.7-8). The way it is eaten is, “It is always eaten…swimming in butter or melted fat, into which every morsel of meat, laid upon a piece of bread, is dipped before being conveyed by the fingers to the mouth.” (Jamieson Fausset and Brown Commentary, emphasis added). And the word “Butter” actually means, “חֶמְאָה, from the root חמא, to curdle or become thick, signifies curdled milk, not butter (βούτυτρον, LXX.; butyrum, Vulgate)” (Pulpit Commentary, emphasis added). Isn’t this a clear violation of the law of God? It says that Abraham kept God’s laws (Gen 26:5)? Would God have broken one of His own laws in the presence of His human servants? Absolutely Not! Is this a contradiction? As we examine this scripture we will find there is no contradiction!
Context is Key!
God repeats this command three times, see Exodus 23:19 Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21. Obviously God wanted this understood and obeyed.
It’s placement and context in Scripture does seem a bit jarring and odd, but this shows that research and digging into the scriptures needs to be done to understand it as God wants us to do, (see Isaiah 28:9-10; Acts 17:11).
In all three places where this sentence is mentioned in the Bible, it seems to be very disjointed, just coming at us abruptly and seemingly out of nowhere. That is because to us it has no context related to it. However, if we look at this verse from a different light, we see something different. Notice the three scriptures:
“The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk” (Ex 23:19).
“The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.” (Ex 34:26). Now, we can see that the first two times it appears it is directly following a mention of the “first” of the first fruit offerings, these are the best of the best. “…not the highest, the best, and most excellent, as the word frequently signifies” (Jamieson Fausset and Brown Commentary, emphasis added). So seething a kid in his mother’s milk is in connection with the harvest, and the festivals of Weeks and the ingathering or Tabernacles.
Now in Deuteronomy it says, “Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
“Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.” (Deut 14:21-22).
Now as noted above the other two references of, “seethe a kid in his mother’s milk” is connected with the harvest and not with the prohibition against eating any animal that “dieth of itself:” The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges states, “That it occurs among laws on ritual implies that the practice it vetoes had a sacramental meaning (as Calvin on Exo 33:19 points out); that both in E and J it immediately follows the offering of first-fruits suggests that this meaning was connected with the security of the harvest or of the fertility of the soil:” (emphasis added). Originally the Bible did not have verse divisions in the numbered form; this latter part of Deuteronomy 14:21 when looking at the other two verses belongs with verse 22, not verse 21 so that it reads, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk. Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.”
The “tithe” of the “increase” “year by year” is in, “…reference…to the second or festival tithe...” (Pulpit Commentary, emphasis added). All three references to the harvest means the feast of weeks or first fruits and the feast of Tabernacles as this source also confirms, “…reference to the feast of Harvest, or feast of Weeks. In ‘the first-fruits of thy land’ there is an unmistakeable allusion to “the first-fruits of thy labours” in Exo 23:16.” (K&D Commentary, emphasis theirs).
So what does seething a kid in his mother’s milk have to do with the harvest?
Knowledge Lost
What if this phrase originally was a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, not literal meaning attached to the phrase. What if that sentence was a common idiom of the time that everyone understood the meaning of – but that the past several cultures have taken out of context, not realizing that it was an idiom but taking it as a literal statement instead. This happens quite often even in our modern day today!
One example, have you ever heard the phrase “flash in the pan.”? These days it means to have great success that quickly fizzles. However, back in the day when this idiom began it was referring to a misfire from a flintlock. See how just a few generations can lose the original meaning of something!
When we look at the context, what does a kid seething in his mother’s milk have to do with the harvest? This phrase has to be figurative not literal! We simply have lost the knowledge of the meaning of this expression!
However, now after researching this subject, reading “a 44 page academic paper from a Biblical research institute detailing all of the current theories surrounding this verse” the only plausible explanation “by the middle of the paper I’d found a theory that makes more sense than anything else I’ve ever come across” (Article; Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk: another possibility, By Christy Jordan).
So what can this mean? Remember the Israelites were coming out of slavery in Egypt. At that time, “As slaves in this land they would have been forced to making offerings to these false gods which their rulers worshipped. Now with their own resources scarce and them likely not even worshipping these gods in actuality, it is highly probable to assume they had the practice of trying to shortchange on the offerings in order to keep some for themselves.
“So if you had to bring the first fruits of your wheat, you could take some of last year’s wheat from the bottom of the barrel and mix it in with the latest, better wheat, and thereby present a lower quality offering while keeping more of the better quality to feed your family with.” (ibid, emphasis added).
Notice again Deuteronomy 14:21-22, “the phrase [seething a kid in his mother’s milk] leads a commentary about first fruits, particularly, making your offerings from the seed year by year, not last years seed mixed with this years, but each year you are to make an offering from that year’s seed.” (ibid, emphasis mine and hers). If it is a Hebrew idiom then it makes total sense! The context plainly shows that we are not to combine the old with the new or one generation of produce with the next, we finally have the sentence that agrees in context within the verses it appears in!
This researcher explains (see above), from their experience as slaves, comes “the premise…that this could be a Hebrew idiom. The mother’s milk is representing a previous generation and the young goat is the latest, newest, best of a new generation.”
As God commanded of his first fruits, he wants the best of the best in his offerings and he is telling Israel not to mix the lower quality of the harvest with the best quality because the first fruits are “holy” to God (see Jeremiah 2:3) and we are to “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:” (Prov 3:9). This figure of speech means, not to combine the old with the new or older generation of produce with the newest. Doing this makes the offering unholy and diminishes the value of it. Not to mention presenting a sacrifice to God with deception, pretending that these are the best of the best, when in reality they are not, but mixing old with the new dumbing down its value. This is sin!
Jesus gives the same type of expression with wine bottles and garments, “No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.
“Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:16-17). The newly converted Christian (New Wine) presents his or herself as a “living sacrifice holy, acceptable unto God” (Rom 12:1). The Christian must “continue” in the word of God and not sin. Not going back to the old ways (old wine), nor mixing sin with righteousness as pictured in revelation, not “defiled with women [symbol of idolatry and sin]; for they are virgins [keeping pure being the best of the best]…being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb.” (Rev 14:4). This is the spiritual lesson God is teaching us in this commandment. You cannot mix sin with righteousness-the sacrifice we must present to God be it our lives or thanksgiving offerings or tithes, must be holy and pure.
So we find the same concept in both testaments given by the same Lord-Jesus Christ who is the God of the Old Testament!
To conclude, this commandment had nothing to do with the dietary laws. It is permissible to eat meat and milk products together. So if you want to eat that cheeseburger you can! In fact, as we have seen in Genesis 18 God has always allowed it.
If you wish to donate to the BICOG Please click here