Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee: the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck, and as of the hart.
Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates. Every animal designed for food, whether ox, goat, or lamb, was during the abode in the wilderness ordered to be slain as a peace offering at the door of the tabernacle; its blood to be sprinkled, and its fat burnt upon the altar by the priest (see the notes at Leviticus 17:1-7). The encampment, being then round about the altar, made this practice, appointed to prevent idolatry, easy and practicable (see Michaelis, 'Commentary,' art. 244). But on the settlement in the promised land, the obligation to slay at the tabernacle was dispensed with, and the people left at liberty to prepare their meat in their cities or homes.
According to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee - i:e., the style of living should be accommodated to one's condition and means: profuse and riotous indulgence can never secure the divine blessing.
The unclean and the clean. The unclean here are those who were under some slight defilement, which, without excluding them from society, yet debarred them from eating any of the sacred meats (Leviticus 7:20). They were at liberty freely to partake of common articles of food.
Roebuck - the gazzelle.
Hart - the Syrian deer (Cervus barbatus) - is a species between our red and fallow deer, distinguished by the lack of the bisantler, or second branch on the horns, reckoning from below, and by a spotted livery, which is effaced only in the third or fourth year ('Biblical Cyclopaedia').