it shall be counted as blood .
. . he has spilled blood. The starkness of this formulation is quite
startling, and very much in keeping with the emphasis throughout the chapter on
the sacrosanct character of blood as the principal bearer and symbol of life.
The person who slaughters an animal without having the priest cast some of its
blood on the legitimate altar of YHWH is considered to have committed murder.
The blood on the altar, then, offered up to the deity together with the burnt
suet, is an expiation for the blood of the animal spilled in the slaughtering
process, a ritual recognition that the taking of life, even for consumption as
food, is a grave act that must be balanced by an act of expiation. (Robert
Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
2019], 1:425)
