The Targum Jonathan delivers one of its harshest legal rulings in Leviticus 17: anyone who slaughters a sacrificial animal outside the Tabernacle is treated "as if he had shed innocent blood." The Hebrew Bible says the person's guilt will be "blood reckoned to that man." The Targum equates unsanctioned slaughter with murder.
The background is idol worship. The Targum makes explicit what the Hebrew implies: the Israelites had been sacrificing "on the face of the field" to demons. The word used is not "spirits" or "other gods" but entities "which are like unto demons." This centralization of sacrifice was not administrative convenience. It was an emergency measure against an ongoing demonic cult.
The blood prohibition gets theological grounding: "the subsistence of the life of all flesh is in the blood." The Targum repeats this principle twice, framing it not as dietary law but as metaphysical fact. Blood is life. Consuming it means consuming another creature's animating force—and that force belongs exclusively to God.
The chapter covers hunting as well. If an Israelite hunts permitted game—beast or fowl—he must pour out the blood and cover it with dust. The Targum adds a condition: "if what he hath killed be not destroyed or strangled, let the blood be covered." The method of killing matters. A strangled animal has its blood trapped inside, making it unfit.
For eating torn or strangled flesh, the Targum prescribes washing in "forty seahs of water"—the standard immersion pool measurement. But then comes a sharp addition: "if he be perverse and will not wash, nor bathe his flesh, he shall bear his transgression." Defiance transforms a minor impurity into a permanent sin.
And the Lord spake with Mosheh, saying:
Speak with Aharon and with his sons, and with the sons of Israel, and tell them: This is the word which the Lord hath commanded, saying:
A man of the house of Israel, young or old, who shall kill as a sacrifice a bullock, or lamb, or goat in the camp, or who killeth it without the camp,
and bringeth it not to the door of the tabernacle of ordinance to offer it an oblation before the Lord, before the tabernacle of the Lord, the blood of slaughter shall be reckoned to that man, and it shall be to him as if he had shed innocent blood, and that man shall be destroyed from his people.
In order that the sons of Israel may bring their sacrifices which they have heretofore killed on the face of the field, they may henceforth bring them before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of ordinance, unto the priest, and sacrifice their consecrated victims before the Lord.
And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of ordinance, and burn the fat, to be received with acceptance before the Lord.
Neither shall they offer any more their sacrifices unto idols which are like unto demons, after which they have wandered. This shall be an everlasting statute to them, unto their generations.
And thou shalt tell them: A man, whether young or old, of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who shall sacrifice a burnt offering, or consecrated oblation,
and bring it not to the door of the tabernacle of ordinance, to be made an oblation before the Lord, that man shall be destroyed from his people.
A man also, whether young or old, of the house of the family of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn, in dwelling among them, who shall eat any blood, I will cause employment to turn away (or cease) from that man who eateth any blood, and will destroy him from among his people.
Because the subsistence of the life of all flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you for a decree, that you shall bring the blood of the victim unto the altar to make atonement for the blood of your lives, because the blood of the victim is to atone for the guilt of the soul.
Therefore have I said to the sons of Israel, Beware lest any man among you eat the blood. Neither shall the strangers who sojourn by dwelling among you eat the blood.
And any man, whether young or old, of the house of the stock of Israel, or of the sojourners who sojourn by dwelling among you, who hunteth venison of beast or fowl proper to be eaten, shall pour out its blood when it is killed; and if what he hath killed be not destroyed (or strangled?), let the blood be covered with dust.
Because the subsistence of the life of all flesh is its blood; it is its life; and I have told the sons of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any flesh; for the subsistence of the life of all flesh is its blood: whosoever among you eateth it shall be destroyed.
And any man who shall eat flesh which hath been thrown away on account of having been strangled (or corrupted), or the flesh of that which hath been torn, (any man,) whether native or sojourner, shall wash his clothes, and bathe in forty seahs of water, and be unclean until evening when he shall be clean;
but if he be perverse and will not wash, nor bathe his flesh, he shall bear his transgression.
