Acts 10:14

Not so, Lord. Peter’s emphatic resistance even to a voice from heaven is quite in harmony with his character. His exclamation here is reminiscent of that of Ezekiel when he contemplated Israel’s eating of defiled food. Abstention from unclean flesh was one of the most characteristic marks of the Jew, and a distinction to which he held rigorously. It had been one of the basic issues between the Jews and the Syrians during the Maccabean War, an issue over which stanch Jews willingly laid down their lives.

However, the distinction between clean and unclean beasts, made definite in Leviticus 11, preceded the Jewish nation. This distinction was made by God and respected by Noah when he supervised the entrance of the animals into the ark.

Man’s original food consisted of fruit, grain, and nuts. Before flesh foods were added to this diet, the distinction between clean and unclean animals already had been made clear. Thus there is no good basis for the position that the ban upon unclean foods was removed when the Jewish ceremonial law ended at the cross. In Peter’s vision these dietary restrictions had symbolic reference to Jewish distinctions between men — themselves and the Gentiles — and the abrogation of these distinctions was the point at issue.

Common. The use of the word “common” in the sense of “impure” according to the Mosaic ritual, reflected the Jewish attitude toward Gentiles. All who were not Jews were viewed as the “common” rabble, shut out from God’s covenant. The practices of these spiritual outcasts, different from those of the chosen people, were called “common” things, and as these “common” things were generally those forbidden by the law, all such prohibited things or actions became known as “common.” Similarly, when men’s hands were defiled ceremonially, they were known as “common hands” (a literal translation of the expression rendered “defiled ... hands” in Mark 7:2).