Discovery BoxLeviticus 17:13-15 
Context17:13 “‘Any man from the Israelites 1 or from the foreigners who reside 2 in their 3 midst who hunts a wild animal 4 or a bird that may be eaten 5 must pour out its blood and cover it with soil, 17:14 for the life of all flesh is its blood. 6 So I have said to the Israelites: You must not eat the blood of any living thing 7 because the life of every living thing is its blood – all who eat it will be cut off. 8
17:15 “‘Any person 9 who eats an animal that has died of natural causes 10 or an animal torn by beasts, whether a native citizen or a foreigner, 11 must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening; then he becomes clean.
1 tc A few medieval Hebrew
2 tn Heb “from the sojourner who sojourns.”
3 tc The LXX, Syriac, Vulgate, and certain
4 tn Heb “[wild] game of animal.”
5 tn That is, it must be a clean animal, not an unclean animal (cf. Lev 11).
6 tn Heb “for the life/soul (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) of all flesh, its blood in its life/soul (נֶפֶשׁ) it is.” The LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate leave out “in its life/soul,” which would naturally yield “for the life of all flesh, its blood it is” (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 261, 263). The present translation is something of an oversimplification, but the meaning is basically the same in any case. Cf. NRSV “For the life of every creature – its blood is its life.”
7 tn Heb “of all flesh” (also later in this verse). See the note on “every living thing” in v. 11.
8 tn For remarks on the “cut off” penalty see the note on v. 4 above.
9 tn Heb “And any soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh).
10 tn Heb “carcass,” referring to the carcass of an animal that has died on its own, not the carcass of an animal slaughtered for sacrifice or killed by wild beasts. This has been clarified in the translation by supplying the phrase “of natural causes”; cf. NAB “that died of itself”; TEV “that has died a natural death.”
11 tn Heb “in the native or in the sojourner.”
