Leviticus 17:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

This was appointed, partly, in opposition to the heathens, who sacrificed in all places; partly, to cut off occasions of idolatry; partly, to prevent the people's usurpation of the priest's office; and partly, to signify that God would accept of no sacrifices but through Christ and in the church, (of both which the tabernacle was a type: see Hebrews 9:11) and according to his own prescript. But though men were tied to this law, God was free to dispense with his own law, which he did sometimes to the prophets, as 1 Samuel 7:9, 1 Samuel 11:15; &c., and afterwards more fully and generally in the days of the Messiah, Zechariah 1:11 1 Thessalonians 4:21,24. Blood shall be imputed unto that man; he shall be esteemed and punished as a murderer both by God and by men. See Isaiah 66:3. The reason is, because he shed that blood, which, though not man's blood, yet was as precious, being sacred and appropriated to God, and typically the price by which men's lives were ransomed. He shall be cut off by death, either by the hand of God, in case men do not know it or neglect to punish it, or by men, if the fact was public and evident.