It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither {f} fat nor blood.

(f) Eating fat was a symbol of carnality, and eating blood signified cruelty.

Wesley's Notes

3:17 All your dwellings - Not only at or near the tabernacle, not only of those beasts which you actually sacrifice, but also in your several dwellings, and of all that kind of beasts. Fat - Was forbidden, To preserve the reverence of the holy rites and sacrifices. That they might be taught hereby to acknowledge God as their Lord, and the Lord of all the creatures, who might reserve what he pleased to himself. To exercise them in obedience to God, and self - denial and mortification of their appetites, even in those things which probably many of them would much desire. Blood - Was forbidden partly to maintain reverence to God and his worship; partly out of opposition to idolaters, who used to drink the blood of their sacrifices; partly with respect to Christ's Blood, thereby manifestly signified. God would not permit the very shadows of this to be used as a common thing. Nor will he allow us, tho' we have the comfort of the atonement made, to assume to ourselves any share in the honour of making it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17. ye eat neither fat nor blood-The details given above distinctly define the fat in animals which was not to be eaten, so that all the rest, whatever adhered to other parts, or was intermixed with them, might be used. The prohibition of blood rested on a different foundation, being intended to preserve their reverence for the Messiah, who was to shed His blood as an stoning sacrifice for the sins of the world [Brown].

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:6-17 Here is a law that they should eat neither fat nor blood. As for the fat, it means the fat of the inwards, the suet. The blood was forbidden for the same reason; because it was God's part of every sacrifice. God would not permit the blood that made atonement to be used as a common thing, Heb 10:29; nor will he allow us, though we have the comfort of the atonement made, to claim for ourselves any share in the honour of making it. This taught the Jews to observe distinction between common and sacred things; it kept them separate from idolaters. It would impress them more deeply with the belief of some important mystery in the shedding of the blood and the burning the fat of their solemn sacrifices. Christ, as the Prince of peace, made peace with the blood of his cross. Through him the believer is reconciled to God; and having the peace of God in his heart, he is disposed to follow peace with all men. May the Lord multiply grace, mercy, and peace, to all who desire to bear the Christian character.

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

Verses 6-17

Directions are here given concerning the peace-offering, if it was a sheep or a goat. Turtle-doves or young pigeons, which might be brought for whole burnt offerings, were not allowed for peace-offerings, because they have no fat considerable enough to be burnt upon the altar; and they would be next to nothing if they were to be divided according to the law of the peace-offerings. The laws concerning a lamb or goat offered for a peace offering are much the same with those concerning a bullock, and little now occurs here; but, 1. The rump of the mutton was to be burnt with the fat of the inwards upon the altar, the whole rump (v. 9), because in those countries it was very fat and large. Some observe from this that, be a thing ever so contemptible, God can make it honourable, by applying it to his service. Thus God is said to give more abundant honour to that part which lacked, 1 Co. 12:23, 24. 2. That which was burnt upon the altar is called the food of the offering, v. 11, 16. It fed the holy fire; it was acceptable to God as our food is to us; and since in the tabernacle God did, as it were, keep house among them, by the offerings on the altar he kept a good table, as Solomon in his court, 1 Ki. 4:22, etc. 3. Here is a general rule laid down, that all the fat is the Lord's (v. 16), and a law made thereupon, that they should eat neither fat nor blood, no, not in their private houses, v. 17. (1.) As for the fat, it is not meant of that which is interlarded with the meat (that they might eat, Neb. 8:10), but the fat of the inwards, the suet, which was always God's part out of the sacrificed beasts; and therefore they must not eat of it, no, not out of the beasts that they killed for their common use. Thus would God preserve the honour of that which was sacred to himself. They must not only not feed upon that fat which was to be the food of the altar, but not upon any like it, lest the table of the Lord (as the altar is called), if something were not reserved peculiar to it, should become contemptible, and the fruit thereof, even its meat, contemptible, Mal. 1:7, 12. (2.) The blood was universally forbidden likewise, for the same reason that the fat was, because it was God's part of every sacrifice. The heathen drank the blood of their sacrifices; hence we read of their drink-offerings of blood, Ps. 16:4. But God would not permit the blood, that made atonement, to be used as a common thing (Heb. 10:29), nor will he allow us, though we have the comfort of the atonement made, to assume to ourselves any share in the honour of making it. He that glories, let him glory in the Lord, and to his praise let all the blood be poured out.