Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. – Exodus 23:19b
When you sit down to eat a meal that someone else cooked, do you ever think about how the meal was prepared? What other ingredients were used? Where the food came from, or the culture it originated from?
Unless we have a food allergy, most of us don’t. We just bow our heads, give thanks, and dig in.
But in the Old Testament, this was everyday life for the Israelites. Food wasn’t just food. It was obedience… it was identity and worship. And it still is for many Jewish people today. In fact, many Old Testament scholars point to Exodus 23:19 as one of the seeds that eventually grew into the modern kosher food laws practiced in Judaism today.
And so we come to this (rather obscure) last sentence in Exodus 23:19 that seems to have come from way out in left field: “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
No explanation, no footnote.
What are we to make of that? The Bible doesn’t give us a precise reason why. It just gives the command.
Some have suggested plausible explanations. The ancient Jewish scholar Philo believed that God considered it wrong that the very substance that nourished and sustained the animal’s life would be used to flavor it after death. In other words, don’t mix life-giving milk with death. That’s possible. It has a certain moral logic to it.
Another explanation comes from historical research into the Canaanite cultures surrounding Israel. Evidence suggests that cooking a young goat in its mother’s milk was part of a pagan ritual practice. If that’s the case, then this command wasn’t about cuisine at all – it was about separation. God didn’t want His people imitating the idolatrous worship of the cultures around them.
Again, those are just possible explanations. They both sound rational, and yet they are still guesses.
And that’s where we need to be careful. Some things in Scripture stir our curiosity and remain a little mysterious. Not every command comes with a full commentary, and not every question we might have gets a neat answer. Sometimes God tells His people, “Don’t do this,” and leaves it there.
I’ve come to realize that part of walking with God is learning to live with a few unanswered questions; to trust His heart even when we don’t fully understand His logic.
Still, I have to admit that of all the things I expected God to address in the Bible, ancient goat recipes wasn’t high on the list!
Former Blackout Artist 