(12) Therefore I said . . . --Because it is the vehicle of life, and has been ordained by God to atone for life, the children of Israel are here forbidden to eat it. The strangers are also prohibited eating blood, because they have submitted to the law of the land, and because their eating it would not only infringe the law which they have voluntarily adopted, but would lessen the horror with which such indulgence was regarded by the Jews. Hence the enforcement of this prohibition by the Apostle (Acts 15:20; Acts 15:29; Acts 21:25).

Verse 12. - This verse emphatically restates that the atoning power of the blood, as being the seat of life, is the reason that the eating of it is forbidden, and the same statement is repeated in a different connexion in verse 14.

17:10-16 Here is a confirmation of the law against eating blood. They must eat no blood. But this law was ceremonial, and is now no longer in force; the coming of the substance does away the shadow. The blood of beasts is no longer the ransom, but Christ's blood only; therefore there is not now the reason for abstaining there then was. The blood is now allowed for the nourishment of our bodies; it is no longer appointed to make an atonement for the soul. Now the blood of Christ makes atonement really and effectually; to that, therefore, we must have regard, and not consider it as a common thing, or treat it with indifference.Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, no soul of you shall eat blood,.... Great or small as Jarchi observes, for the reason above given; which, though not expressed before, was the true reason of this law, which had been given before, and now repeated; see Leviticus 3:17,

neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood; any proselyte of righteousness; this is not observed before.