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Leviticus 11
New English Translation

Clean and Unclean Land Creatures

11 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 2 “Tell the Israelites: ‘This is the kind of creature you may eat from among all the animals[a] that are on the land. 3 You may eat any among the animals that has a divided hoof (the hooves are completely split in two[b]) and that also chews the cud.[c] 4 However, you must not eat these[d] from among those that chew the cud and have divided hooves: The camel is unclean to you[e] because it chews the cud[f] even though its hoof is not divided.[g] 5 The rock badger[h] is unclean to you because it chews the cud even though its hoof is not divided. 6 The hare is unclean to you because it chews the cud even though its hoof is not divided. 7 The pig is unclean to you because its hoof is divided (the hoof is completely split in two[i]) , even though it does not chew the cud.[j] 8 You must not eat from their meat and you must not touch their carcasses;[k] they are unclean to you.

Clean and Unclean Water Creatures

9 “‘These you can eat from all creatures that are in the water: Any creatures in the water that have both fins and scales,[l] whether in the seas or in the streams,[m] you may eat. 10 But any creatures that do not have both fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the streams, from all the swarming things of the water and from all the living creatures that are in the water, are detestable to you. 11 Since they are detestable to you, you must not eat their meat and their carcass you must detest. 12 Any creature in the water that does not have both fins and scales is detestable to you.

Clean and Unclean Birds

13 “‘These you are to detest from among the birds—they must not be eaten, because they are detestable:[n] the griffon vulture, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, 14 the kite, the buzzard of any kind,[o] 15 every kind of crow,[p] 16 the eagle owl,[q] the short-eared owl, the long-eared owl, the hawk of any kind, 17 the little owl, the cormorant, the screech owl, 18 the white owl, the scops owl, the osprey, 19 the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.

Clean and Unclean Insects

20 “‘Every winged swarming thing that walks on all fours[r] is detestable to you. 21 However, this you may eat from all the winged swarming things that walk on all fours, which have jointed legs[s] to hop with on the land. 22 These you may eat from them:[t] the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind, the grasshopper of any kind. 23 But any other winged swarming thing that has four legs is detestable to you.

Carcass Uncleanness

24 “‘By these[u] you defile yourselves—anyone who touches their carcass will be unclean until the evening, 25 and anyone who carries their carcass must wash his clothes and will be unclean until the evening.

Inedible Land Quadrupeds

26 “‘All[v] animals that divide the hoof, but it is not completely split in two,[w] and do not chew the cud[x] are unclean to you; anyone who touches them becomes unclean.[y] 27 All that walk on their paws among all the creatures that walk on all fours[z] are unclean to you. Anyone who touches their carcass will be unclean until the evening, 28 and the one who carries their carcass must wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening; they are unclean to you.

Creatures that Swarm on the Land

29 “‘Now this is what is unclean to you among the swarming things that swarm on the land:[aa] the rat, the mouse, the large lizard of any kind, 30 the Mediterranean gecko, the spotted lizard, the wall gecko, the skink, and the chameleon. 31 These are the ones that are unclean to you among all the swarming things. Anyone who touches these creatures[ab] when they die will be unclean until evening. 32 Also, anything they fall on[ac] when they die will become unclean—any wood vessel or garment or article of leather or sackcloth. Any such vessel with which work is done must be immersed in water[ad] and will be unclean until the evening. Then it will become clean. 33 As for any clay vessel they fall into,[ae] everything in it[af] will become unclean and you must break it. 34 Any food that may be eaten which becomes soaked with water[ag] will become unclean. Anything drinkable[ah] in any such vessel will become unclean.[ai] 35 Anything their carcass may fall on will become unclean. An oven or small stove must be smashed to pieces; they are unclean, and they will stay unclean[aj] to you. 36 However, a spring or a cistern which collects water[ak] will be clean, but one who touches the creature’s carcass will be unclean. 37 Now, if such a carcass falls on any sowing seed which is to be sown,[al] it is clean, 38 but if water is put on the seed and such a carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you.

Edible Land Animals

39 “‘Now if an animal[am] that you may eat dies,[an] whoever touches its carcass will be unclean until the evening. 40 One who eats from its carcass must wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening, and whoever carries its carcass must wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. 41 Every swarming thing that swarms on the land is detestable; it must not be eaten. 42 You must not eat anything that crawls[ao] on its belly or anything that walks on all fours or on any number of legs[ap] of all the swarming things that swarm on the land, because they are detestable. 43 Do not make yourselves detestable by any of the swarming things.[aq] You must not defile yourselves by them and become unclean by them, 44 for I am the Lord your God and you are to sanctify yourselves and be holy because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any of the swarming things that creep on the ground, 45 for I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God,[ar] and you are to be holy because I am holy. 46 This is the law[as] of the land animals, the birds, all the living creatures that move in the water, and all the creatures[at] that swarm on the land, 47 to distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between the living creatures that may be eaten and the living creatures that must not be eaten.’”

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Footnotes

  1. Leviticus 11:2 tn Heb “the animal,” but as a collective plural, and so throughout this chapter.
  2. Leviticus 11:3 tn Heb “every divider of hoof and cleaver of the cleft of hooves”; KJV, ASV “parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted.”
  3. Leviticus 11:3 tn Heb “bringer up of the cud” (a few of the ancient versions include the conjunction “and,” but it does not appear in the MT). The following verses make it clear that both dividing the hoof and chewing the cud were required; one of these conditions would not be enough to make the animal suitable for eating without the other.
  4. Leviticus 11:4 tn Heb “this,” but as a collective plural (see the following context).
  5. Leviticus 11:4 sn Regarding “clean” versus “unclean,” see the note on Lev 10:10.
  6. Leviticus 11:4 tn Heb “because a chewer of the cud it is” (see also vv. 5 and 6).
  7. Leviticus 11:4 tn Heb “and hoof there is not dividing” (see also vv. 5 and 6).
  8. Leviticus 11:5 sn A small animal generally understood to be Hyrax syriacus; KJV, ASV, NIV “coney”; NKJV “rock hyrax.”
  9. Leviticus 11:7 tn See the note on Lev 11:3.
  10. Leviticus 11:7 tn The meaning and basic rendering of this clause is quite certain, but the verb for “chewing” the cud here is not the same as the preceding verses, where the expression is “to bring up the cud” (see the note on v. 3 above). It appears to be a cognate verb for the noun “cud” (גֵּרָה, gerah) and could mean either “to drag up” (i.e., from the Hebrew Qal of גָרָר [garar] meaning “to drag,” referring to the dragging the cud up and down between the stomach and mouth of the ruminant animal; so J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:647, 653) or “to chew” (i.e., from the Hebrew Niphal [or Qal B] of גָרָר used in a reciprocal sense; so J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 149, and compare BDB 176 s.v. גָרַר, “to chew,” with HALOT 204 s.v. גרר qal. B, “to ruminate”).
  11. Leviticus 11:8 sn The regulations against touching the carcasses of dead unclean animals (contrast the restriction against eating their flesh) is treated in more detail in Lev 11:24-28 (cf. also vv. 29-40). For the time being, this chapter continues to develop the issue of what can and cannot be eaten.
  12. Leviticus 11:9 tn Heb “all which have fin and scale” (see also vv. 10 and 12).
  13. Leviticus 11:9 tn Heb “in the water, in the seas and in the streams” (see also vv. 10 and 12).
  14. Leviticus 11:13 tn For zoological remarks on the following list of birds see J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:662-64; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 159-60.
  15. Leviticus 11:14 tn Heb “and the buzzard to its kind” (see also vv. 16 and 19 for the same expression “of any kind”).
  16. Leviticus 11:15 tn Heb “every crow to its kind.” Many English versions (e.g., KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) render this as “raven.”
  17. Leviticus 11:16 tn Literally, “the daughter of the wasteland.” Various proposals for the species of bird referred to here include “owl” (KJV), “horned owl” (NIV, NCV), and “ostrich” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).
  18. Leviticus 11:20 tn Heb “the one walking on four” (cf. vv. 21-23 and 27-28).
  19. Leviticus 11:21 tn Heb “which to it are lower legs from above to its feet” (reading the Qere “to it” rather than the Kethib “not”).
  20. Leviticus 11:22 tn For entomological remarks on the following list of insects see J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:665-66; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 160-61.
  21. Leviticus 11:24 tn Heb “and to these.”
  22. Leviticus 11:26 tn Heb “to all” (cf. the note on v. 24). This and the following verses develop more fully the categories of uncleanness set forth in principle in vv. 24-25.
  23. Leviticus 11:26 tn Heb “divides hoof and cleft it does not cleave”; KJV “divideth the hoof, and is not clovenfooted”; NLT “divided but unsplit hooves.”
  24. Leviticus 11:26 tn See the note on Lev 11:3.
  25. Leviticus 11:26 sn Compare the regulations in Lev 11:2-8.
  26. Leviticus 11:27 tn Heb “the one walking on four.” Cf. Lev 11:20-23.
  27. Leviticus 11:29 tn For zoological analyses of the list of creatures in vv. 29-30, see J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:671-72; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 161-62.
  28. Leviticus 11:31 tn Heb “touches them.”
  29. Leviticus 11:32 tn Heb “And all which it shall fall on it from them.”
  30. Leviticus 11:32 tn Heb “in water it shall be brought.”
  31. Leviticus 11:33 tn Heb “And any earthenware vessel which shall fall from them into its midst.”
  32. Leviticus 11:33 tn Heb “all which is in its midst.”
  33. Leviticus 11:34 tn Heb “which water comes on it.”
  34. Leviticus 11:34 tn Heb “any drink which may be drunk”; NASB “any liquid which may be drunk”; NLT “any beverage that is in such an unclean container.”
  35. Leviticus 11:34 tn This half of the verse assumes that the unclean carcass has fallen into the food or drink (cf. v. 33 and also vv. 35-38).
  36. Leviticus 11:35 tn Heb “be unclean.”
  37. Leviticus 11:36 tn Heb “a spring and a cistern collection of water”; NAB, NIV “for collecting water.”
  38. Leviticus 11:37 tn Heb “And if there falls from their carcass on any seed of sowing which shall be sown.”
  39. Leviticus 11:39 tn This word for “animal” refers to land animal quadrupeds, not just any beast that dwells on the land (cf. 11:2).
  40. Leviticus 11:39 tn Heb “which is food for you” or “which is for you to eat.”
  41. Leviticus 11:42 tn Heb “goes” (KJV, ASV “goeth”); NIV “moves about”; NLT “slither along.” The same Hebrew term is translated “walks” in the following clause.
  42. Leviticus 11:42 tn Heb “until all multiplying of legs.”
  43. Leviticus 11:43 tn Heb “by any of the swarming things that swarm.”
  44. Leviticus 11:45 tn Heb “to be to you for a God.”
  45. Leviticus 11:46 sn The Hebrew term translated “law” (תּוֹרָה, torah) introduces here a summary or colophon for all of Lev 11. Similar summaries are found in Lev 7:37-38; 13:59; 14:54-57; and 15:32-33.
  46. Leviticus 11:46 tn Heb “for all the creatures.”
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Leviticus 11
New American Standard Bible

Laws about Animals for Food

11 The Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, 2 “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘(A)These are the creatures which you may eat from all the animals that are on the earth. 3 Whatever has a divided hoof, showing split hoofs, and chews the cud, among the animals, that you may eat. 4 Nevertheless, (B)you are not to eat of these, among those which chew the cud, or among those which have a divided hoof: the camel, for though it chews cud, it does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean to you. 5 Likewise, the rock hyrax, for though it chews cud, it does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean to you. 6 The [a]rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean to you. 7 And the pig, for though it has a divided hoof, and so it shows a split hoof, it does not chew cud; it is unclean to you. 8 You shall not eat any of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.

9 ‘(C)These you may eat, of whatever is in the water: everything that has fins and scales, in the water, in the seas, or in the rivers, you may eat. 10 (D)But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that does not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you, 11 and they shall be detestable to you; you may not eat any of their flesh, and you shall detest their carcasses. 12 Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is detestable to you.

Avoid the Unclean

13 ‘Moreover, these (E)you shall detest among the birds; they are detestable, not to be eaten: the [b]eagle, the vulture, and the [c]buzzard, 14 the red kite, the falcon in its kind, 15 every raven in its kind, 16 the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, and the hawk in its kind, 17 the little owl, the cormorant, and the [d]great owl, 18 the white owl, the [e]pelican, and the carrion vulture, 19 the stork, the heron in its kinds, the hoopoe, and the bat.

20 ‘All the [f]winged insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you. 21 Yet these you may eat among all the [g]winged insects that walk on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to jump on the earth. 22 These of them you may eat: the locust in its kinds, the devastating locust in its kinds, the cricket in its kinds, and the grasshopper in its kinds. 23 But all other [h]winged insects which are four-footed are detestable to you.

24 ‘By these, moreover, you will be made unclean; whoever touches their carcasses becomes unclean until evening, 25 and (F)whoever picks up any of their carcasses shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. 26 As for all the animals which have a divided hoof but do not show a split hoof, or do not chew the cud, they are unclean to you; whoever touches them becomes unclean. 27 Also whatever walks on its paws, among all the creatures that walk on all fours, are unclean to you; whoever touches their carcasses becomes unclean until evening, 28 and the one who picks up their carcasses shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; they are unclean to you.

29 ‘Now these are to you the unclean among the swarming things which swarm on the earth: the mole, the mouse, and the [i]great lizard in its kinds, 30 the gecko, the [j]crocodile, the lizard, the [k]sand reptile, and the chameleon. 31 These are to you the unclean among all the swarming things; whoever touches them when they are dead becomes unclean until evening. 32 Also anything on which one of them may fall when they are dead becomes unclean, including any wooden article, or clothing, or a hide, or a sack—any article [l]of which use is made—(G)it shall be put in the water and be unclean until evening, then it becomes clean. 33 As for any (H)earthenware vessel into which one of them may fall, whatever is in it becomes unclean and you shall break [m]the vessel. 34 Any of the [n]food which may be eaten, on which water comes, shall become unclean, and any [o]liquid which may be drunk in every vessel shall become unclean. 35 Moreover, everything on which part of their carcass may fall becomes unclean; an oven or a [p]stove shall be smashed; they are unclean and shall continue as unclean to you. 36 Nevertheless, a spring or a cistern [q]collecting water shall be clean, though the one who touches their carcass shall be unclean. 37 Now if a part of their carcass falls on any seed for sowing which is to be sown, it is clean. 38 But if water is put on the seed and a part of their carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you.

39 ‘Also if one of the animals dies which you have for food, the one who touches its carcass becomes unclean until evening. 40 (I)He, too, who eats some of its carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening, and the one who picks up its carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening.

41 ‘(J)Now every swarming thing that swarms on the earth is detestable, not to be eaten. 42 Whatever crawls on its belly, and whatever walks on all fours, whatever has many feet, in regard to every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, you shall not eat them, because they are detestable. 43 (K)Do not make [r]yourselves detestable through any of the swarming things that swarm; and you shall not make yourselves unclean with them so that you become unclean. 44 For (L)I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and (M)be holy, because I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. 45 (N)For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; so (O)you shall be holy, because I am holy.’”

46 This is the law regarding the animal and the bird, and every living thing that moves in the waters and everything that swarms on the earth, 47 (P)to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten.

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Footnotes

  1. Leviticus 11:6 Or hare
  2. Leviticus 11:13 Or vulture
  3. Leviticus 11:13 Or black vulture
  4. Leviticus 11:17 Specifically, great horned owl
  5. Leviticus 11:18 Or owl; or jackdaw
  6. Leviticus 11:20 Lit swarming things with wings
  7. Leviticus 11:21 See note v 20
  8. Leviticus 11:23 See note v 20
  9. Leviticus 11:29 Or thorn-tailed lizard
  10. Leviticus 11:30 Or lizard
  11. Leviticus 11:30 Species as yet undefined
  12. Leviticus 11:32 Lit with which work is done
  13. Leviticus 11:33 Lit it
  14. Leviticus 11:34 I.e., if touched by a carcass; cf. vv 29-32
  15. Leviticus 11:34 I.e., if touched by a carcass; cf. vv 29-32
  16. Leviticus 11:35 Lit hearth for supporting (two) pots
  17. Leviticus 11:36 Lit a collecting place of
  18. Leviticus 11:43 Lit your souls
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