“The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
dje,
Ha. I was just thinking about this crazy verse a couple of days ago. Even in its time of writing it must have seemed wacko. But is this all it is, an obscure ancient dietary prescription concerning the preparation of certain goat meats? Or can there be found in this strange dietary prohibition a spiritual meaning that reaches beyond eating restrictions?
And what is it that is so strange?
Eating goat meat, even young goat meat isn’t out of the ordinary.
The kid wasn’t necessarily boiled alive as it would probably have been slaughtered first. So the boiling aspect doesn’t present anything disturbing in itself.
Cooking meat in milk isn’t repulsive in itself especially if water is scarce.
But what
is strange is that the newborn animal is cooked in
its own mother’s milk, the very milk that was co-generated alongside the newborn within the same maternal body, the very milk intended to nourish the newborn’s feeble life in its first days and insure life beyond infancy. Given this, this dish now seems unnatural, disturbing and cruel. How so? People were a lot more superstitious then than now and also much closer to and in tune with natural processes - they had to be. So the combination of a newborn animal cooked in its own mother’s milk probably seemed grossly contrary to the natural order of perceived things and thus repulsive.
OK, but beyond some general appreciation for ordered natural processes in God’s creation, what possible spiritual meaning can be derived from this? How can this possibly reflect upon my own personal spiritual growth?
Isn’t it interesting that this verse follows the prescription to offer one’s best to God? It seems there could not be two more different verses alongside each other, one so broad and general and the other so particular and localized. Is this bizarre juxtaposition of verses explained away as just a random result of rewriting and redaction? Was this order derived from drawing verses out of a hat? Or could it be intentional even necessary that one follows the other?
Is it a stretch to suggest that offering our best to God is necessary for us to grow spiritually, that it is good for our souls? No, of course not, it is fundamental. Then offering our best to God, giving our ‘first fruits’ to God can be described as spiritual ‘mother’s milk’ for our souls. It is vital for our soul’s spiritual growth. It is a very spiritually natural thing to occur. Given this, then when we deny to offer God our best and keep it all to ourselves we are in effect upsetting the ‘spiritual’ natural order. By keeping what we should offer we transform that which is meant to nourish us spiritually into that which kills us spiritually. When we succumb to materialism, when our goal is gain, gain, gain; when we don’t let go of things, we are spiritually boiling our souls in our souls’ own spiritual ‘mother’s milk.’ The nourishing process of offering our best to God, which is meant to bring life to our souls, is perverted into the bubbling milky formaldehyde of materialism within which float our dead souls.
Vegetarian anyone? : )
This phrase then, despite being practiced literally, at the time could also have been understood and used much as we understand and use the phrase, ‘don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.’
‘Don’t let kill you that which is intended for your life’s nourishment’ - then seems to be the gist.
I hope this helped.
Pete
