The prohibition to eat blood (verse 16) is here justified by the statement the blood is the life. This may have to be expressed as “it is the blood that gives life to a living being.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .