Deuteronomy 12:20, commentary and pictures

Deuteronomy stands as the fifth and last book of the Pentateuch, containing the second of three addresses given by Moses just before his death, in which chapters 5 to 26 review the law for the new generation, and from which the book takes its name meaning second law or duplicate of the law. Within that review the verse belongs to a special tithe law given to Israel, allowing the people, when their territory is enlarged, to eat meat according to their desire. The enlargement spoken of is the enlargement of the border by God as He had promised, and upon that enlargement a person who says he will eat flesh because his soul longs to eat flesh may eat flesh, whatsoever his soul lusts after.

In this place soul means a person's self or physical person, expressing the person's own longing to eat flesh, so that the soul itself is shown as able to desire food and to eat. In the same sense soul means appetite, so that when a person's appetite longs for meat the person may eat it, describing a desire for food and not a separate immortal part of a person. The soul is thus described as longing for, desiring, and eating flesh as natural food, showing that the soul is material rather than an immaterial, immortal, intangible essence.

The permission is to satisfy the desire of the soul when God enlarges the territory as promised and a person desires meat, even when the soul longs for it. That permission to satisfy appetite stands in contrast with God's purpose for Israel to seek the place God chose, to rejoice in His blessings, and to enter the promised rest, showing that a permission granted at one time did not express God's unchanging purpose, and that privileges given through Moses could have been unnecessary had Israel fulfilled that purpose. The phrase whatsoever thy soul lusteth after is a general expression limited by specific commands in the same context, permitting only animals God has designated as clean and not those forbidden as unclean.

The specific laws defining clean and unclean animals remain in force, so that a permitted animal could be eaten but not offered as a sacrifice, the permission assuming that a faithful person will not desire what God has expressly forbidden, and liberty never excusing desires or choices that lead to wrongdoing or harm. The specific tithe law itself is not legally binding today, while the continuing principle of systematic giving to God's work is affirmed. The permission to eat meat when desired, including as territory expands, does not approve eating meat in excess, distinguishing ordinary permission to eat animal food from the post-Flood generation's sin of eating it largely and giving themselves to excess.