Solving Puzzling Passages: "You shall not boil a goat in its mother's milk."
Exploring What the Bible Really Says About Slavery
At first glance, it’s one of the oddest commands in the Bible:
You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19 ESV).
It’s the last command in God’s first revelation of the Law to Israel. This isn’t a throwaway line—it’s repeated in Exodus 34:26 and Deuteronomy 14:21. Why would God care about something so specific, so trivial?
Why would God use this space to command matters of magnitude, like abolishing slavery, then pair it with matters of seemingly little importance, like preparing goat’s meat?
The command sits in a list of laws about worship, justice, and stewardship, right alongside instructions to bring the best of your firstfruits to God’s house. Some scholars suggest it countered a pagan practice—boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk to sprinkle the mixture over fields for fertility. That’s possible, but the text doesn’t mention sprinkling or fields, or anything connected to fertility rites. Deuteronomy ties it to food preparation, suggesting it’s about how Israel handles what they eat.
Still, we have to ask: why does this matter?
Consider the imagery. A young goat, tender and vulnerable, relies on its mother’s milk for life. That milk is nourishment, a gift from God’s created order to sustain the next generation. To take that milk and use it to cook the goat—killing the very life it was meant to nurture—is a perversion. It twists what God designed for life into an instrument of death. It’s not just about the act; it’s about the heart behind it.
Think about it practically. Boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk might make the meat tender, even delicious. Your stomach might say, “This is good!” And the milk is easy to get—convenient, right there in the flock. But God says, Don’t judge this by your appetite or your ease. Don’t let taste or convenience override the sacred order of life.
What you do matters.
How you treat God’s creation matters.
Let’s picture a modern example. Imagine visiting someone’s home and finding their backyard littered with dead animals—rabbits, squirrels, birds, trapped and killed for no reason. They’re not breaking any of the Ten Commandments. They’re not murdering or stealing. But something feels wrong, doesn’t it? You’d sense they don’t value life. You might not feel safe around them. Why? Because how we treat living things reveals our heart. If someone is careless with the smallest creatures, what does that say about how they’ll treat people?
What they do matters.
God’s command about the goat isn’t about vegetarianism—Scripture permits eating meat (Genesis 9:3). It’s about stewardship. All life comes from God, and we’re called to honor it, even the life of the animals we eat. We don’t worship the goat or bow to it. It’s given for food. But we don’t treat it carelessly, twisting what’s meant for life into death. This command sharpens the pain of sacrifice, making us mindful of the cost of life rather than numbing us to it.
Notice how this law is paired with another:
The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God (Exodus 23:19 ESV).
The connection isn’t accidental. Both commands reveal the heart. When you bring your firstfruits—the culmination of a year’s labor, the best of your harvest—you’re saying God comes first. You don’t hold back the choicest portion for yourself. Likewise, when you refuse to boil a goat in its mother’s milk, you’re saying creation isn’t yours to exploit. You don’t put your desires—taste, convenience—above God’s design.
These two acts are linked by stewardship. God entrusts you with crops and livestock, and how you handle them shows your heart. Do you hoard the best for yourself, or do you offer it to God? Do you treat creation with cruelty, or do you honor its life? Every choice reflects your priorities. Every choice shapes your soul.
What you do matters.
Jesus echoed this principle:
“Whoever is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much” (Luke 16:10 ESV).
The young goat and the firstfruits aren’t trivial. They’re tests of the heart. Will we trust God’s way, even when it’s odd or inconvenient? Will we honor the life He’s given, even in the smallest acts? These choices shape who we are. They show whether we’re stewards or exploiters, whether we love God or love ourselves more.
If we follow God even in the smallest commands — even in the ones that just don’t make sense — He can use us to bring life to the world.
But if we reject God’s commands — especially when we don’t understand them — the opposite happens.