11:1 VA YEDABER YHVH EL MOSHEH VE EL AHARON LEMOR AL'EHEM
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל מֹשֶׁה וְאֶל אַהֲרֹן לֵאמֹר אֲלֵהֶם
KJ (King James translation): And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,
BN (BibleNet translation): Then YHVH spoke to Mosheh and Aharon, saying to them:
11:2 DABRU EL BENEY YISRA-EL LEMOR ZOT HA CHAYAH ASHER TO'CHLU MI KOL HA BEHEMAH ASHER AL HA ARETS
דַּבְּרוּ אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר זֹאת הַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר תֹּאכְלוּ מִכָּל הַבְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר עַל הָאָרֶץ
KJ: Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.
BN: Speak to the Beney Yisra-El, saying: "These are the living things which you may eat from among all the animals that are on the Earth.
Is it not odd that the list of edibles and prohibiteds is being given now, after the rules governing the sacrifices, rather than before?
11:3 KOL MAPHRESET PARSAH VE SHOSA'AT SHESA PERASOT MA'ALAT GERAH BA BEHEMAH OTAH TO'CHELU
כֹּל מַפְרֶסֶת פַּרְסָה וְשֹׁסַעַת שֶׁסַע פְּרָסֹת מַעֲלַת גֵּרָה בַּבְּהֵמָה אֹתָהּ תֹּאכֵלוּ
KJ: Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.
BN: Whatever among the animals parts the hoof - provided that it is completely cloven-footed - and chews the cud, that you may eat.
MAPHRESET PARSAH: However, compare Deuteronomy 14:6/8 - as well as the verses below - which qualifies this permission by ruling out those animals which only meet one of the three conditions: "the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but do not divide the hoof; therefore they are unclean to you. And the pig, because it divides the hoof, but does not chew the cud, it is unclean to you. You shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass."
Artiodactyla is the technical name for animals with cloven hoofs, and it includes deer, cattle and goats; also the giraffe, hippopotamus and antelope, which would not have been known to the Beney Yisra-El. An animal that chews the cud is properly known as a "ruminant". What is less clear is the distinction between an animal which parts the hoof, and one which is "completely cloven-footed"; see below.
MA'ALAT GERA: the list of ruminants includes cattle, goats, sheep, giraffe, bison, yak, water buffalo, deer, camel, alpaca, llama, wildebeest, antelope, pronghorn, and nilgai, several of which are also cloven-hoofed.
11:4 ACH ET ZEH LO TO'CHLU MI MA'ALEY HA GERAH U MI MAPHRISEY HA PARSAH ET HA GAMAL KI MA'ALEH GERAH HU U PHARSAH EYNENU MAPHRIS TAM'E HU LACHEM
אַךְ אֶת זֶה לֹא תֹאכְלוּ מִמַּעֲלֵי הַגֵּרָה וּמִמַּפְרִסֵי הַפַּרְסָה אֶת הַגָּמָל כִּי מַעֲלֵה גֵרָה הוּא וּפַרְסָה אֵינֶנּוּ מַפְרִיס טָמֵא הוּא לָכֶם
KJ: Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
BN: Nevertheless, of the animals that only chew the cud, or of those that only part the hoof, you shall not eat the following: the camel, because he chews the cud but does not part the hoof, he is unclean to you...
GAMAL: The Yehudit letter Gimmel (Greek Gamma - Γ) is written down in such a way it looks like a toy camel, which is deliberate - ג; Gimmel is Gamal, which in Yehudit means "a camel" (just to explain, the alphabet itself was Phoenician, from Ugarit; both the Beney Yisra-El and the various Greek peoples adopted it, but the Greeks took only the letters, abandoning the meanings, where the Beney Yisra-El retained the meanings)
11:5 VE ET HA SHAPHAN KI MA'ALEH GERAH U PHARSAH LO YAPHRIS TAM'E HU LACHEM
וְאֶת הַשָּׁפָן כִּי מַעֲלֵה גֵרָה הוּא וּפַרְסָה לֹא יַפְרִיס טָמֵא הוּא לָכֶם
KJ: And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
BN: ...and the rock-badger, because he chews the cud but does not part the hoof, he is unclean to you.
And anyway, those images of cloven-hoofed Satan in Christian mythology are intended to reveal his "badness", whereas Leviticus declares it not only good but actually essential; so this cannot be the answer either.
But for people of faith, and especially Jewish people of faith, they being a notoriously stiff-necked people according to several Biblical references, it is never sufficient that this is the law; they have to know, and I include myself amongst them, they simply have to know, there must be a reason, life cannot continue meaningfully without knowing, why. To see what some of the more ingenious among them have come up with, click here. Or here. Or even, for a Cabbalistic perspective, here. But truthfully, none of them know either.
SHAPHAN: see also Deuteronomy 14:7, Psalm 104:18, Proverbs 30:26 - the latter of which, in the links I have chosen, don't even bother to translate SHEPHANIM, but use the word as though it were English. "Rock-badger" in King James and elsewhere is probably a consequence of Jerome seeking a Latin equivalent for the Septuagint's Greek δασύποδα (dasypoda), which he rendered as "mus jaculus" (the Jerboa in Arabic). Rabbinic texts regard it as the coney, though probably the hare is intended (a coney is a rabbit; the hare could be any one of several kindred species). But the hare is definitely the ARNEVET - in the next verse.
As a name SHAPHAN appears as a scribe of King Yoshi-Yahu (Josiah) in 2 Kings 22:3; there is also an Achi-Kam ben Shaphan in Jeremiah 26:24, a Gemar-Yahu ben Shaphan in Jeremiah 36:10, a Gedal-Yahu ben Achi-Kam ben Shaphan in Jeremiah 39:14, and a Ya'azan-Yahu ben Shaphan in Ezekiel 8:11.
As a name SHAPHAN appears as a scribe of King Yoshi-Yahu (Josiah) in 2 Kings 22:3; there is also an Achi-Kam ben Shaphan in Jeremiah 26:24, a Gemar-Yahu ben Shaphan in Jeremiah 36:10, a Gedal-Yahu ben Achi-Kam ben Shaphan in Jeremiah 39:14, and a Ya'azan-Yahu ben Shaphan in Ezekiel 8:11.
11:6 VE ET HA ARNEVET KI MA'ALAT GERAH HI U PHARSAH LO HIPHRISAH TEME'AH HI LACHEM
וְאֶת הָאַרְנֶבֶת כִּי מַעֲלַת גֵּרָה הִוא וּפַרְסָה לֹא הִפְרִיסָה טְמֵאָה הִוא לָכֶם
KJ: And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
BN: And the hare, because she chews the cud but does not part the hoof, she is unclean to you.
ARNEVET: modern Ivrit regards it as the rabbit, though it was probably a more generic name anciently; difficult to distinguish the Arnevet from the Shaphan. Why is a SHAPHAN masculine but an ARNEVET feminine? I have no idea.
וְאֶת הַחֲזִיר כִּי מַפְרִיס פַּרְסָה הוּא וְשֹׁסַע שֶׁסַע פַּרְסָה וְהוּא גֵּרָה לֹא יִגָּר טָמֵא הוּא לָכֶם
KJ: And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.
BN: And the pig, because he parts the hoof, and is cloven-footed, but does not chew not the cud, he is unclean to you.
CHAZIR: The pig. 1 Chronicles 24:15 has a man who bears the name in the list of King David's Kohanim, all of them descendants of El-Azar ben Aharon, the original Kohen (does having the name of an unclean animal not count as a blemish and therefore preclude inclusion in the priesthood? Who calls their child "pig" anyway?)
11:8 MI BESARAM LO TOCHELU U VE NIVLATAM LO TIGA'U TEME'IM HEM LACHEM
מִבְּשָׂרָם לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ וּבְנִבְלָתָם לֹא תִגָּעוּ טְמֵאִים הֵם לָכֶם
KJ: Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.
BN: You shall not eat their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean unto you.
There are some who will argue that both the fully-cloven hoof and the chewing of the cud are matters of hygiene; indeed, the modern school of thought tends to view all of Kashrut as a matter of hygiene, though there is very little evidence to support the claim, except in the matter of shellfish. It is entirely possible that the ancients had some basic understanding of diseases such as foot-and-mouth, and attributed them to a lack of cleft or a failure to ruminate; but modern science shows this to be a falsehood anyway.
And though they are prohibited food items, it is not formally prohibited to make clothes out of their skins, or to use their fat for candles, or their bones for building. However, to do so would require touching their carcasses in some form, and this verse therefore adds that prohibition (though there is one limited exception - Leviticus 7:24 allows the hide of an animal killed in the wild by other animals to be used; limited because, though it is unstated there, this verse appears to tie up the loophole regarding clean and unclean animals found in that manner).
11:9 ET ZEH TO'CHLU MI KOL ASHER BA MAYIM KOL ASHER LO SENAPIR VE KASKESET BA MAYIM BA YAMIM U VA NECHALIM OTAM TOCHELU
אֶת זֶה תֹּאכְלוּ מִכֹּל אֲשֶׁר בַּמָּיִם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר לוֹ סְנַפִּיר וְקַשְׂקֶשֶׂת בַּמַּיִם בַּיַּמִּים וּבַנְּחָלִים אֹתָם תֹּאכֵלוּ
KJ: These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
BN: These you may eat of everything that is in the waters: whatever has fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them you may eat.
Once again we have to question the historicity of the document - why would Mosheh come up with a set of laws, for a people inhabiting a desert, hundreds of miles from any possibility of fish of any sort, and then list river-fish, and others that are not known in the Red Sea - the nearest sea if we accept the historicity - but are known in the Mediterranean?
SENAPIR: Is that the root of the fish we call Snapper? A facetious question, but the fact is: no one knows the source of the word, which has a samech (ס) not a seen (ש) for a first letter, and is therefore quite probably a foreign word borrowed into Yehudit. There is speculation that the root might have been NAPHAR (נפר), because it is similar (with the first letter samech), and means "to annul", which could, at a pinch, in the Pi'el (intensive) form, give a sense of things being "propelled", which is what fins do - but this really is stretching the business of etymology into very murky and turbulent waters, and definitely swimming upstream in those waters.
KASKESET: see also 1 Samuel 17:5 and Ezekiel 29:4. There is a very obscure verb KASAS (קשש), meaning "to peel", from which, in the manner of ADAMDAM and YERAKRAK for the "ish" versions of colours (reddish, greenish), it is assumed that KASKESET was formed, the scales being something you have to peel off when you prepare fish for cooking (see my notes to Leviticus 13:38 and 49).
TOCHLU...TOCHELU: What is the difference?
This is actually a very strange way of declaring the prohibition on shell-fish. It does not name them, where animals and birds are specifically named (see verses 13 ff). But who knows whether this fish has fins and that one scales? The answer is: all fish do; the ones that swim around in rivers and lakes and ponds and which even a child could point at and say, "Look, mummy, fish", even if it couldn't specify cod or plaice or haddock. The ones that don't are the shellfish and the sea-mammals: clams, lobster, shrimp, crabs, mussels and squid for the former, whale, shark, dolphin and porpoise for the sea-mammals. The white tuna and the king mackerel are the only exceptions, but neither of these were likely to turn up in the river Yarden or off the coast of Yafo (Jaffa, Joppa).
11:10 VE CHOL ASHER EYN LO SENAPIR VE KASKESET BA YAMIM U VA NECHALIM MI KOL SHERETS HA MAYIM U MI KOL NEPHESH HA CHAYAH ASHER BA MAYIM SHEKETS HEM LACHEM
This is actually a very strange way of declaring the prohibition on shell-fish. It does not name them, where animals and birds are specifically named (see verses 13 ff). But who knows whether this fish has fins and that one scales? The answer is: all fish do; the ones that swim around in rivers and lakes and ponds and which even a child could point at and say, "Look, mummy, fish", even if it couldn't specify cod or plaice or haddock. The ones that don't are the shellfish and the sea-mammals: clams, lobster, shrimp, crabs, mussels and squid for the former, whale, shark, dolphin and porpoise for the sea-mammals. The white tuna and the king mackerel are the only exceptions, but neither of these were likely to turn up in the river Yarden or off the coast of Yafo (Jaffa, Joppa).11:10 VE CHOL ASHER EYN LO SENAPIR VE KASKESET BA YAMIM U VA NECHALIM MI KOL SHERETS HA MAYIM U MI KOL NEPHESH HA CHAYAH ASHER BA MAYIM SHEKETS HEM LACHEM
וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר אֵין לוֹ סְנַפִּיר וְקַשְׂקֶשֶׂת בַּיַּמִּים וּבַנְּחָלִים מִכֹּל שֶׁרֶץ הַמַּיִם וּמִכֹּל נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר בַּמָּיִם שֶׁקֶץ הֵם לָכֶם
KJ: And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
BN: But those that do not have fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, from amongst everything that swarms in the waters, and from among all the living creatures that are in the waters, they shall be considered detestable to you.
SHERETS: Used as a generic term for most reptiles and small aquatic creatures - see also Genesis 1:20 and 21, Genesis 7:21. Exodus 7:28 has SHARATS, the verb from the same root, for the "swarming" of frogs during that plague. Genesis 8:17 and 9:7 likewise use it to mean "swarm", but in the sense of "go forth and multiply", the swarming being the process of multiplication. Deuteronomy 14:19, which is the second giving of the Kashrut laws, appears to regard SHERETS as specifically flying reptiles, which the Rabbinic commentators then insist must be four-legged, excluding, for example, the cricket, which has six.
SHEKETS: the root that gives us the word SHIKSA = "a detestable thing". There is also Shaygets, a word that no one ever seems to use, but which is technically the correct insult for a non-Jewish man that your daughter has married, where a shiksa is the blonde bimbo, a different kind of forbidden fruit, with whom you cheated on your wife.
As with the cloven hoof and the rumination, we are told what but never why these conditions apply; what is it about fins and scales that distinguishes them?
11:11 VE SHEKETS YIHEYU LACHEM MI BESARAM LO TO'CHELU VE ET NIVLATAM TESHAKETSU
וְשֶׁקֶץ יִהְיוּ לָכֶם מִבְּשָׂרָם לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ וְאֶת נִבְלָתָם תְּשַׁקֵּצוּ
KJ: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
BN: And they shall be considered detestable to you; you shall not eat of their flesh, and you shall regard their carcasses as detestable.
Isn't the language rather hyperbolous here? Or, mind you, if this is historical, and there were 1.5 million of these people, camped around the shores of the Red Sea, or whatever open spring they could find in the desert, and bound to be using that for a latrine as well as drinking-water... you can write the rest of this paragraph yourself, but "detestable" is definitely the mot juste.
11:12 KOL ASHER EYN LO SENAPIR VE KASKESET BA MAYIM SHEKETS HU LACHEM
כֹּל אֲשֶׁר אֵין לוֹ סְנַפִּיר וְקַשְׂקֶשֶׂת בַּמָּיִם שֶׁקֶץ הוּא לָכֶם
KJ: Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.
BN: Whatever has no fins or scales in the waters, it shall be considered detestable to you.
Again no reason is given why fins and scales are a must, and why the rest cannot be eaten, especially as neither the fins nor the scales are ever eaten anyway (nor the cloven hooves, nor the stomach of the ruminating beast).
11:13 VE ET ELEH TESHAKTSU MIN HA OPH LO YE'ACHLU SHEKETS HEM ET HA NESHER VE ET HA PERES VE ET HA AZNIYAH
וְאֶת אֵלֶּה תְּשַׁקְּצוּ מִן הָעוֹף לֹא יֵאָכְלוּ שֶׁקֶץ הֵם אֶת הַנֶּשֶׁר וְאֶת הַפֶּרֶס וְאֵת הָעָזְנִיָּה
KJ: And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,
BN: And you shall consider these detestable among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are detestable: the great vulture, and the bearded vulture, and the osprey...
NESHER, PERES, AZNIYAH: All birds of prey, and therefore considered likely to carry sickness if eaten.
NESHER: The root, NASHAR, means "to tear in pieces" and is used for teeth, and for claws rather than hands. See also Deuteronomy 32:11, Psalm 103:5 and Ezekiel 17:3. Micah 1:16 has, in some translations (but not the one I have linked to), a bald vulture, which may be an ancient mistaking of the bald eagle, or simply a prevalence of baldness amongst the species. Job 39:27 has the NESHER feeding on dead bodies, though whether of humans or other creatures is not specified. Proverbs 30:17 has the young of the Nesher as themselves the prey. Matthew 24:28 (the commentary at this link is worth reading for its thoughts on the eagle and the vulture) observes that "Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather." Daniel 7:4 uses the word, though actually in Chaldean Aramaic rather than Yehudit - NESHAR (נְשַׁ֖ר) rather than NESHER. Modern Ivrit remains undecided: the word is used for the eagle, and for the griffon vulture (though not for the turkey vulture). Eagles are a common sight in Yisra-El, as per this article in the Jerusalem Post; some splendid footage of multiple birds of prey in the Gamla Valley here.
PERES: This one is immensely complex, because there is also PARAS, written exactly the same, but which is Persia (Eylam, Medea, Iran... the word Pharsi, or Farsi, comes from the same source), and there is also the connection with the PARSAH (פַּרְסָה) that was MAPHRESET in verse 3 et al: the cloven hoof. Was it called a PERES because it migrated westward from Persia, or was it first seen by the Beney Yisra-El while living or travelling or exiled there? Was it called a PERES - as it very easily might be today by the Israeli government - as a metaphor for Persia as a ravenous bird of prey looking around for easy victims it can pick off to feed the aspirations of the inhabitants of its nest? Or was it that vultures have claws which are reminiscent of the cloven hooves of pigs and camels - certainly the case with the ossifrage (see illustration), the bird that most scholars believe is intended by the PERES? All three even - we simply can't know.
(and for the information, yes, former Israeli President Shimon Peres spelled his name the same, but he took it from its similarity to Perski, his family's name in what was then Wieniawa, Poland, now Vishniev in Belarus.)
AZNIYAH: Job 30:27-30 identifies it as an eagle, and notes that this particular eagle is particularly long-sighted, which is not what we would expect from the root of the name: an OZEN is an ear, not an eye. Though it may be that the root is OZ rather than OZEN - OZ meaning "strength", as we hear regularly about the deity, who is ADONAI OZ; this possibility is strengthened by Isaiah 23:11, which has MA'UZNEYHA (מָעֻזְנֶֽיהָ) for "strongholds".
11:14 VE ET HA DA'AH VE ET HA AYAH LEMIYNAH
וְאֶת הַדָּאָה וְאֶת הָאַיָּה לְמִינָהּ
KJ: And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;
BN: And the kite, and the falcon, in the varieties of their genus;
DA'AH, AYAH: More birds of prey, and sufficient knowledge of the falcon to distinguish between species.
DA'AH: Deuteronomy 28:49 has יִדְאֶ֖ה = "flies" (as in the verb, not the insect), and then NESHER immediately afterwards, which is decidedly unhelpful; except to tell us that the noun from this verb is going to be a bird, presumably a fast-flying one as the eagle here is described as "swift". Jeremiah 48:40 and 49:22 do exactly the same, and Deuteronomy 14:13 has it exactly the same as here. The Septuagint offers "gypa" (γύπα), which is definitely a vulture in the broadest sense, but not in the specific. So all we can say is that it is a fast-flying bird of prey, and invite you to click here, and then make up your own mind; and don't forget to include the falcon, which is also a strong candidate for Da'ah, as per the note to Ayah below.
AYAH: See also Deuteronomy 14:13, which has the Da'ah and the Ayah, but also the Ra'ah - רָאָה - which most scholars think is the red kite, as opposed to the Ayah, which is the black kite, and, at least according to several translators of this verse - but who nonetheless give "kite" for it here in Leviticus 11 - the Da'ah is the falcon. Genesis 36:24 has an Ayah and Anah who were the children of Tsivon, Anah given as male, Ayah unstated as to gender but named first so presumably taken-as-read as male. There is also Ritspah bat Ayah who became the love-interest of Av-Ner, king Sha'ul's uncle and commander of his army (2 Samuel 3:7 and 21:8-11), she mothered Armoni and Mephi-Boshet.
11:15 ET KOL OREV LEMIYNO
אֵת כָּל עֹרֵב לְמִינוֹ
KJ: Every raven after his kind;
BN: Every raven after its genus;
OREV: Raven or crow? Or does LEMIYNO automatically include both? There are differences - click here to learn what they are. I note that the Septuagint uses κόρακα (pronounced "koraka"), which modern Greek thinks is a crane, while using κοράκι (pronounced "koraki") for both the raven and the crow.
OREV: Raven or crow? Or does LEMIYNO automatically include both? There are differences - click here to learn what they are. I note that the Septuagint uses κόρακα (pronounced "koraka"), which modern Greek thinks is a crane, while using κοράκι (pronounced "koraki") for both the raven and the crow.
11:16 VE ET BAT HA YA'ANAH VE ET HA TACHMAS VE ET HA SHACHAPH VE ET HA NETS LEMIYNEH
וְאֵת בַּת הַיַּעֲנָה וְאֶת הַתַּחְמָס וְאֶת הַשָּׁחַף וְאֶת הַנֵּץ לְמִינֵהוּ
KJ: And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,
BN: And the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk according to their genus;
BAT HA YA'ANAH: Other than finding it in LA'ANOT = "to reply", no obvious root for this word exists in Yehudit, and that is before we wonder why an animal would be named as the "daughter of...". Hunting around the languages of the region, some scholars have found YA'AN in both Assyrian and Ethiopic, meaning anything from "intent" to "greedy", while others insist the BAT HA YA'ANAH is the owl, because it hoots back at you when you disturb it. Lamentations 4:3 has YE'ENIM (יְעֵנִ֖ים), the full male rather than the daughter; Deuteronomy 14:15 has HA YA'ANAH (הַֽיַּעֲנָ֔ה), the mother; Isaiah 13:21, 34:13 and 43:20 all have BENOT YA'ANAH (בנות יענה), a plurality of daughters, which several translators render as owls, as also Micah 1:8; and yet those same translators, finding the same BENOT YA'ANAH in Job 30:29, render it as ostrich. Modern Ivrit has no doubt that the YA'ANAH is the ostrich, has even identified which species of ostrich; and finding that it had been hunted to virtual extinction everywhere, including in Israel itself by the 1920s, that it was only living in the wild in some parts of Africa, is now attempting to breed and reintroduce it (click here and then here).
TACHMAS: One of my favourite pieces of grammar, much used in the creation of new words in modern Ivrit. In 1978, for example, the Israeli Air Force sent an ostensible passenger airline to Uganda, in fact packed with paratroopers and a black Rolls Royce, to effect the raid on Entebbe airport that would free the hostages from a hijacking; but to get all the way there and back, a re-fuel was required, and re-fuelling in mid-air had not yet been invented. So the Israelis invented it (with a little bit of help from the Kenyans, who chose to ignore their presence over Kenyan air-space). But it needed a word. Fuel for cars and airplanes in Ivrit is DELEK, from the Biblical root that lights candles on a Friday evening - LEHADLIK NER SHEL SHABBAT. So "to refuel" became LETADLEK, the initial TAV (ת) used as a statement of reinforcement, stronger than a mere Pi'el. So, in the same way, the root CHAMAS (the name deliberately adopted as its acronym by another modern terrorist organisation) means "violence", and a particular pecky and picky breed of ostrich, inclined to precisely such behaviour, became, in Biblical times, the TACHMAS.
The standard translation of TACHMAS as a night-hawk is almost certainly incorrect; the BAT YA'ANAH is the female, the TACHMAS the male ostrich. Google-translate's translation of TACHMAS as the herb thyme definitely needs correction - though oddly, if you reverse it and ask for the Ivrit for thyme, it correctly gives KORANIT (קוֹרָנִית).
SHACHAPH: The root has a tendency towards leanness, even attenuation, which is a reasonable description of most sea-gulls (or sea-mews; there is apparently a difference).
NETS: This one is very odd. Genesis 40:10 has NITSA (נצה), but the context makes it unquestionably "blossom", and not a bird of prey. But here, and in Deuteronomy 14:15, as in Job 39:26, it is regarded as the hawk, and modern Ivrit retains this.
11:17 VE ET HA KOS VE ET HA SHALACH VE ET HA YANSHUPH
וְאֶת הַכּוֹס וְאֶת הַשָּׁלָךְ וְאֶת הַיַּנְשׁוּף
KJ: And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl,
BN: And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl;
KOS: Elsewhere, a KOS is a cup (elsewhere, KOS is a Greek island), but here, as in Deuteronomy 14:16 and Psalm 102:7, it is normally translated as the night-owl, for reasons that have no etymological base, nor even a hypothesis. Samuel Bochart in his Hierozoichon (vol ii, p267), does have a hypothesis, and it makes a lot of sense: that the bird in question is the pelican, whose vast throat is very much a cup, and which passes across Yisra-El annually as it migrates to and from Africa (click here). Modern Ivrit, however, has SHAKNAI (שַׁקנַאי) for the pelican, and not KOS (which is still used for a cup, just as in Genesis 40:11, Psalm 23:5 and innumerable other references).
SHALACH: Whereas this is generally translated as a pelican - though I have chosen the common alternative here, which is cormorant. As an aquatic bird the SHALACH only appears here, and in the parallel piece in Deuteronomy 14:17, which makes it more difficult to speculate, especially as the root - SHALACH means "to send" or "throw" - seems unconnected, and there is nothing obviously onomatopoeic in the word either. For Shalach, note that it has been used as a name previously. The Septuagint renders it as the "katarrakten" (καταρράκτην), which is even more unhelpful, because the cormorant in Greek is the "falakrokorax" (φαλακροκόραξ) and the pelican is the "pelikanos" (πελεκάνος), while "katarrakten" is a cataract, though whether in the human eye or ... is it possible that certain birds of prey have cloudy eyes, and therefore...?
YANSHUPH: Deuteronomy 14:16 and Isaiah 34:11 are its only other appearances; the Septuagint translates it as the "ibin" (ἶβιν), which is what we would now call the "ibis", and therefore probably the Egyptian heron, very different from the great owl of most translations; in modern Ivrit the Yanshuph is definitely the owl (but see verse 18 below).
11:18 VE ET HA TINSHEMET VE ET HA KA'AT VE ET HA RACHAM
וְאֶת הַתִּנְשֶׁמֶת וְאֶת הַקָּאָת וְאֶת הָרָחָם
KJ: And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle,
BN: And the horned owl, and the pelican, and the carrion-vulture;
TINSHEMET: And yet again I have to repeat, that most of the translations of these bird-names are little more than guesswork by the scholars, unrooted in anything more than pleasant speculation. This one, for example, is unquestionably listed among the birds of prey, and I am not aware that lizards are birds of any kind, though religious lizards may well pray, and hungry ones will no doubt track down innocent flies and gnats and devour them hungrily without saying a blessing, performing ritual slaughter, or even washing their hands. Serious scholars, including Gesenius and Bochart, are nevertheless convinced that the Tinshemet is a lizard, and Gesenius is so convinced he even specifies the chameleon, relying on that most reliable of Natural History sources, the Wikipedia of his day, Pliny the Elder, who in 8:33 of his Natural History explains that the chameleon lives wholly by inhaling air and does not require any other type of food; Gesenius then sees NESHAMAH = "breath" as coming from the same root that yields TINSHEMET, joins Pliny with Ezra, or is it Mosheh, and draws his conclusion (by odd coincidence, as per the link to his name, Pliny the Elder died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, getting too close to the crater in his desire to study it). In modern Ivrit, however, the TINSHEMET is definitely the owl (but see verse 17 above).
KA'AT: Isaiah 34:11, Zephaniah 2:14 and Psalm 102:7 all have the name, and generally it gets translated as "pelican", which is frankly silly, or lazy, as will be obvious to anyone who has read the notes on this chapter thus far. All these words cannot mean the same bird. At the same time, mere speculation can be even sillier; Gesenius the culprit again, deciding that KA'AT comes from KA, an unknown root in paleo-Hebrew, let alone Yehudit, let alone Aramaic, let alone modern Ivrit, but which he may have used in his home as a euphemism for "vomit", which he insists that it means; and from it (Gesenius page 720 if you don't believe me): the KA'AT must be the pelican because it is "so-called from its vomiting, as this very voracious bird is accustomed to vomit sea-shells and other things which it has swallowed." Did he conduct that research in Nordhausen or in Halle?
As to the bird, the small neophron vultur percnopterus is the preference among the majority of scholars, the Egyptian Vulture is English, though the Egyptian's refer to it by the slang name of "Pharaoh's chicken".
RACHAM also crops up as a name, in 1 Chronicles 2:44.
11:19 VE ET HA CHASIYDAH HA ANAPHAH LEMIYNAH VE ET HA DUCHIYPHAT VE ET HA ATALEPH
וְאֵת הַחֲסִידָה הָאֲנָפָה לְמִינָהּ וְאֶת הַדּוּכִיפַת וְאֶת הָעֲטַלֵּף
KJ: And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.
BN: And the stork, and the heron by the variety of its genus, and the hoopoe, and the bat.
CHASIYDAH: A Chasid (or sometimes Hasid, or even Hassid), is a Jew of great piety, as noted in Psalm 30:5, 31:24 and 37:28 (the links here are all to the same Jewish synagogue website, which rather surprisingly translates CHASIDAV as "saintly"), and was in late Biblical times applied to the followers of Yehudah ha Maccabee, so that they became known, and remained known as such in Jesus' time, as the Zealous Ones, or Zealots (though from the 1st century BCE the term became very specific; click here). The kindness, compassion and mercy of the deity - I am unable to provide historical examples of this - are also described as Hasid, in Psalm 12:2, 18:26 and 43:1, and to this day it remains one of the principal names used to describe the most orthodox among Jewry. How does this connect to a bird of prey (unless those long, feathered ears can be mistaken for side-curls)? The answer among scholars is again taken from Pliny's Natural History (10:28) where he talks of the uncommon love of the young stork for its parents (it is unclear what benchmarks he used to make this judgement, or what research was carried out to provide empirical proof; and what, in the Shakespearian tones of Cordelia, is a child's love for its parents anyway?). From this it is concluded that the CHASIYDAH must have been the stork, and this has been retained in modern Ivrit.
ANAPHAH: Is there a "VE ET" missing before HA ANAPHAH? The way this is written, HA ANAPHAH becomes an adjectival description of HA CHASIYDAH, and clearly that is not the intention. Ironically, following the supposed breathing-habits of the TINSHEMET in verse 18, those of the ANAPHAH are a great deal more than supposition, the root giving us the verb "to breathe", probably from APH = "the nose"; and then used frequently in the Tanach for anger, most especially the anger of the deity, because angry people tend to contract their nostrils and breathe extra-deeply, and part of the process of sacrificial propitiation involved getting the deity to unclench his nostrils, by sweetening them with the "sweet savours" of the meat. But all of that latter is metaphorical, and the bird of prey here is physical and literal. Deuteronomy 14:18 is the parallel text for this one, and alas there are no others to assist us. The Septuagint goes for "charadrion" (χαραδριὸν), which is thought to be a bird that lives among the hollows and the banks of rivers, most likely a sandpiper or a heron.
DUCHIYPHAT: Gesenius is once again the place to go for a serious attempt to invent a speculation that could lead to the possibility of a hypothesis from which an implausible explanation might then be tried out on the gullible - or hoopoeable in this case. A matter of rocks and hard places, but you will enjoy exploring it yourself.
ATALEPH: see Isaiah 2:20. Modern Ivrit agrees that this is the bat (and readers from the Anglo-Saxon world and its former colonies may be amused that the next-but-one creature to be mentioned by name after the bat will be the cricket).
11:20 KOL SHERETS HA OPH HA HOLECH AL ARBA SHEKETS HU LACHEM
כֹּל שֶׁרֶץ הָעוֹף הַהֹלֵךְ עַל אַרְבַּע שֶׁקֶץ הוּא לָכֶם
KJ: All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.
BN: All winged, swarming things that go on all fours shall be considered detestable to you.
What creatures would be included in this list (other than the cricket)? See verse 22.
11:21 ACH ET ZEH TO'CHLU MI KOL SHERETS HA OPH HA HOLECH AL ARBA ASHER LO CHERA'IM MI MA'AL LE RAGLAV LENATER BAHEN AL HA ARETS
אַךְ אֶת זֶה תֹּאכְלוּ מִכֹּל שֶׁרֶץ הָעוֹף הַהֹלֵךְ עַל אַרְבַּע אֲשֶׁר לא (לוֹ) כְרָעַיִם מִמַּעַל לְרַגְלָיו לְנַתֵּר בָּהֵן עַל הָאָרֶץ
KJ: Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
BN: But these you may eat from among all the winged, swarming things that go on all fours: those which have jointed legs above their feet, with which to leap upon the earth;
For what creatures this might include, see below.
11:22 ET ELEH ME HEM TO'CHELU ET HA ARBEH LEMIYNO VE ET HA SAL'AM LE MIYNEHU VE ET HA CHARGOL LE MIYNEHU VE ET HA CHAGAV LE MIYNEHU
אֶת אֵלֶּה מֵהֶם תֹּאכֵלוּ אֶת הָאַרְבֶּה לְמִינוֹ וְאֶת הַסָּלְעָם לְמִינֵהוּ וְאֶת הַחַרְגֹּל לְמִינֵהוּ וְאֶת הֶחָגָב לְמִינֵהוּ
KJ: Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.
BN: Even these of them you may eat: the locust after its genus, and the bald locust after its genus, and the cricket after its genus, and the grasshopper after its genus.
ARBEH: The ARBEH (locust) was one of the "plagues" of Mitsrayim (Egypt) - Exodus 10:4 ff. It is, in fact, a much-eaten creature around the world, including among many Jews (click here).
SALAM: A four-letter root and a samech (ס) as well; a two-fold probability that this was a foreign word adopted into Yehudit. This is its only mention in the Tanach. Peace to those who think it might be connected with King Solomon or the city of Jerusalem - it isn't.
CHARGOL: again the four-letter root suggests a foreign source; there is no Yehudit root containing these four letters, nor any grammatical form that would create it; CHARAG = "to shake" or "tremble", for example, would need to add the final Lamed (ל), but Yehudit grammar has no Lamed suffix.
CHAGAV: See also Numbers 13:33, Isaiah 40:22 and Ecclesiastes 12:5. Like the locust and the cricket, and the other flying and jumping insects, it belongs to the group of creatures known technically as Orthoptera.
Note the distinction between LE MIYNO and LE MIYNEYHU; the latter meaning there are multiple varieties of this genus; the first only one variant (in the ancient understanding of biology, it goes without saying).
11:23 VE CHOL SHERETS HA OPH ASHER LO ARBA RAGLAYIM SHEKETS HU LACHEM
וְכֹל שֶׁרֶץ הָעוֹף אֲשֶׁר לוֹ אַרְבַּע רַגְלָיִם שֶׁקֶץ הוּא לָכֶם
KJ: But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
BN: But all winged, swarming things, which have four feet, shall be considered detestable to you.
11:24 U LE ELEH TITAMA'U KOL HA NOGE'A BE NIVLATAM YITMA AD HA AREV
וּלְאֵלֶּה תִּטַּמָּאוּ כָּל הַנֹּגֵעַ בְּנִבְלָתָם יִטְמָא עַד הָעָרֶב
KJ: And for these ye shall be unclean: whosoever toucheth the carcase of them shall be unclean until the even.
BN: And by these you shall be rendered unclean; whoever touches their carcass shall be rendered unclean until evening.
The taboo on this occasion appears to have more to do with touching the carcasses than with eating the flesh. But what exactly is it that happens in the evening that releases the uncleanness? Simply the raindrops of time, which are a natural cleaner (yes, but also the Shimson-Delilah story, the sun that rules by day and the moon that rules by night: these are YHVH's rules, not YAH's!).
AREV: Written precisely the same as the raven/crow of verse 15.
AREV: Written precisely the same as the raven/crow of verse 15.
11:25 VE CHOL HA NOS'E MI NIVLATAM YECHABES BEGADAV VE TAM'E AD HA AREV
וְכָל הַנֹּשֵׂא מִנִּבְלָתָם יְכַבֵּס בְּגָדָיו וְטָמֵא עַד הָעָרֶב
KJ: And whosoever beareth ought of the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even.
BN: And whoever carries any of their carcass shall wash his clothes, and be rendered unclean until the evening.
Very similar rules were introduced for essential workers during the Coronavirus lockdown of 2020. And I say this because this is one of the difficulties for modern scholars - at times, these ancients appear to be quite extraordinarily ignorant, and filling in their knowledge gaps with mysticism and superstition; but at others their knowledge is just as sophisticated as ours today (cell bifurcation in Genesis 1, contagions and bacterial infections here, etc).
11:26 LE CHOL HA BEHEMAH ASHER HI MAPHRESET PARSAH VE SHESA EYNENAH SHOSA'AT VE GERAH EYNENAH MA'ALAH TEME'IM HEM LACHEM KOL HA NOGE'A BAHEM YITMA
לְכָל הַבְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר הִוא מַפְרֶסֶת פַּרְסָה וְשֶׁסַע אֵינֶנָּה שֹׁסַעַת וְגֵרָה אֵינֶנָּה מַעֲלָה טְמֵאִים הֵם לָכֶם כָּל הַנֹּגֵעַ בָּהֶם יִטְמָא
KJ: The carcases of every beast which divideth the hoof, and is not clovenfooted, nor cheweth the cud, are unclean unto you: every one that toucheth them shall be unclean.
BN: Every beast which parts the hoof, but is not cloven-footed, and which does not chew the cud, is unclean to you; every one that touches them shall be rendered unclean.
Why the need to give the same set of rules twice in the same chapter?
11:27 VE CHOL HOLECH AL KAPAV BE CHOL HA CHAYAH HA HOLECHET AL ARBA TEME'IM HEM LACHEM KOL HA NOGE'A BE NIVLATAM YITMA AD HA AREV
וְכֹל הוֹלֵךְ עַל כַּפָּיו בְּכָל הַחַיָּה הַהֹלֶכֶת עַל אַרְבַּע טְמֵאִים הֵם לָכֶם כָּל הַנֹּגֵעַ בְּנִבְלָתָם יִטְמָא עַד הָעָרֶב
KJ: And whatsoever goeth upon his paws, among all manner of beasts that go on all four, those are unclean unto you: whoso toucheth their carcase shall be unclean until the even.
BN: And whatever walks on its paws, among all beasts that go on all-fours, they shall be considered as unclean to you; whoever touches their carcass shall be rendered unclean until the evening.
Whereas (see my note to verse 25) this is pure superstition - a man finds a dead lizard on his doorstep and throws it on the compost-heap, and is rendered unclean, exactly the same at dawn, at mid-day, or at one minute before sunset. Then perhaps the repetition of the law is a distinction being made between unclean as in taboo for religious reasons connected with the gods, and unclean bacterially, for which washing the hands with soap is all that is really needed.
11:28 VE HA NOS'E ET NIVLATAM YECHABES BEGADAV VE TAM'E AD HA AREV TEME'IM HEMAH LACHEM
וְהַנֹּשֵׂא אֶת נִבְלָתָם יְכַבֵּס בְּגָדָיו וְטָמֵא עַד הָעָרֶב טְמֵאִים הֵמָּה לָכֶם
KJ: And he that beareth the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: they are unclean unto you.
BN: And he who carries their carcass shall wash his clothes, and be rendered unclean until the evening; they are unclean to you.
Thus KASHRUT, the business of being kosher, is not simply about what can and cannot be eaten, but also about what can and cannot be used for other purposes, or even touched; which is to say, again, this is as much about hygiene as it is about taboo. So, for example, you find a dead pigeon in your back garden, or the carcass of a badger that got hit by a car and is now blocking the entrance to your field, and you dispose of the remains - you are TAM'E, unclean, and must undertake both the clothes-cleaning and the ritual offering.
11:29 VE ZEH LACHEM HA TAM'E BA SHERETS HA SHORETS AL HA ARETS HA CHOLED VE HA ACHBAR VE HA TSAV LE MIYNEHU
וְזֶה לָכֶם הַטָּמֵא בַּשֶּׁרֶץ הַשֹּׁרֵץ עַל הָאָרֶץ הַחֹלֶד וְהָעַכְבָּר וְהַצָּב לְמִינֵהוּ
KJ: These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind,
BN: And these too shall be considered as unclean to you among the reptiles that crawl over the earth: the weasel, and the mouse, and the great lizard after its genus.
CHOLED: Translated here as the weasel, though it may be the mole. 2 Kings 22:14 and 2 Chronicles 34:22 both name CHULDAH as a prophetess, "who was the wife of Shalum (שַׁלֻּם) son of Tikvah (תִּקְוָה), the son of Charchas (חַרְחַס), keeper of the wardrobe" which itself would be worth a detailed exegesis - but alas TheBibleNet is not sufficiently resourced to cover Kings and Chronicles as well - oh, very well, but just a hint. The root (very much the key word here) of CHULDAH is CHALAD, which means "to dig", whence CHOLED is a digging animal such as the mole or weasel; but CHALAD is also used, metaphorically and metaphysically, in Arabic as in Yehudit, for digging in time, to convey the sense of eternity (see Psalm 39:6 and 89:48, Job 11:17), and the world itself (see Psalm 17:14 and 49:2, and you might like to look at John 15:18 and 19 as well). This makes Chuldah a woman who "digs in time", which is not really a Prophetess at all, but a seer, a ba'alat ov - and these were prohibited by Mosaic law, which makes her part in the story worth exploring. Then there are the other names - all abstract ideas, Shalum = wholeness, Tikvah = hope... you can do the rest of the commentary yourself, including the slight variations on the names between Kings and Chronicles; I still have huge amounts of this chapter to address. Such as noting that, in modern Ivrit, CHULDAH is neither the mole nor the weasel, but the bobcat or the polecat, while the CHOLED may be either a rat or a mole.
ACHBAR: The mouse, and quite specifically the fieldmouse; however see 1 Samuel 6:4, where many translators have rendered it as "rat" (rat is sometimes ACHBEROSH - עכברוש - in modern Ivrit, perhaps because King Ahasuerus in the Esther story was one); while Isaiah 66:17 seems to think it's a dormouse (the dormouse at Alice's tea-party, by the way, sleeps because Lewis Carroll was really the Revd Charles Dodgson, and he was accustomed to studying the linguistics of the Bible, and therefore playing the sort of language games that these roots and grammatical constructions endlessly suggest. So why does his dormouse sleep? Because there are housemice and fieldmice, but there are also ceux qui dorment - c'est evident, non?).
TSAV: The royal litter, railway carriage of the ancient kings - at least, in its usage in Isaiah 66:20; but also the Mishkan in its travelling capacity. A rather more drone-like delivery vehicle, according to Numbers 7:3, when the Beney Yisra-El brought their oblations to the Sanctuary on SHESH EGLOT TSAV (שֵׁשׁ־עֶגְלֹת צָב) - "six covered wagons". How do we get to this, or perhaps from this, and find that the TSAV is also a species of lizard? Perhaps because it moves in a majestic manner, albeit slowly, as though burdened down with offerings?
11:30 VE HA ANAKAH VE HA KO'ACH VE HA LETA'AH VE HA CHOMET VE HA TINSHAMET
וְהָאֲנָקָה וְהַכֹּחַ וְהַלְּטָאָה וְהַחֹמֶט וְהַתִּנְשָׁמֶת
KJ: And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole.
BN: And the gecko, and the land-crocodile, and the lizard, and the sand-lizard, and the chameleon.
ANAKAH: Not to be confused with ANAK with an Ayin (ענק), which means "to adorn", though it seems to be used specifically for the neck, with necklaces as well as slave-collars coming from this root. This, however, is ANAKAH with an Aleph (א), whose root means "to strangle" or "to be in anguish" - for which see Jeremiah 51:52 and Ezekiel 26:15.
I have made the distinction because many scholars have failed to do so, drawing their hypotheses about the ANAKAH from assumptions about its neck, and thereby reckoning it to be a goat-like, or even a giraffe-like creature, for that reason (Bochart, Gesenius), and in one case suggesting that ANAKAH is a variant of AKO (אקו), which is the word for the roe, also a prettily-necked creature.
All of which confirms that, yet again, we really don't know what animal was being referred to, though modern Ivrit uses the word for a ferret.
All of which confirms that, yet again, we really don't know what animal was being referred to, though modern Ivrit uses the word for a ferret.
KO'ACH: the common word for "strength", far too many instances of its use in the Tanach to need citations. How it gets to be an animal can only be by consequence of logic, though, and this is the only reference to it, the land-crocodile - which is really a Disney creature as crocodile are fresh-water reptiles even if they do occasionally come out to dry - certainly meets the description.
LETA'AH: Another creature with only this one mention, and no known root in Yehudit to assist us. In Arabic, however, the word is understood to suggest something that cleaves to the ground, which lizards do, and so there you have it.
CHOMET: With a final Tet (ט), not Tav (ת), or it really would be complicated. As with Leta'ah, above, except that there isn't even any help from the Arabic.
TINSHAMET: We had exactly the same letters in verse 18, except there they were pronounced TINSHEMET and regarded as the horned owl. Something isn't quite right here!
11:31 ELEH HA TEME'IM LACHEM BE CHOL HA SHARETS KOL HA NOGE'A BA HEM BE MOTAM YITMA AD HA AREV
אֵלֶּה הַטְּמֵאִים לָכֶם בְּכָל הַשָּׁרֶץ כָּל הַנֹּגֵעַ בָּהֶם בְּמֹתָם יִטְמָא עַד הָעָרֶב
KJ: These are unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until the even.
BN: These are the ones that shall be considered unclean by you among all the reptiles; whoever touches them, when they are dead, shall be rendered unclean until the evening.
It does not overtly state that they cannot be eaten, only that they cannot be touched when they are dead; and of course, unless they are eaten raw - but all raw meat has already been forbidden - then it is hard to work out how they could be eaten cooked without someone touching them; so not-eating is actually implicit.
11:32 VE CHOL ASHER YIPOL ALAV ME HEM BE MOTAM YITMA MI KOL KELI ETS O VEGED O OR O SAK KOL KELI ASHER YE'ASEH MELA'CHAH BAHEM BA MAYIM YUVA VE TAM'E AD HA EREV VE TAHER
וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִפֹּל עָלָיו מֵהֶם בְּמֹתָם יִטְמָא מִכָּל כְּלִי עֵץ אוֹ בֶגֶד אוֹ עוֹר אוֹ שָׂק כָּל כְּלִי אֲשֶׁר יֵעָשֶׂה מְלָאכָה בָּהֶם בַּמַּיִם יוּבָא וְטָמֵא עַד הָעֶרֶב וְטָהֵר
KJ: And upon whatsoever any of them, when they are dead, doth fall, it shall be unclean; whether it be any vessel of wood, or raiment, or skin, or sack, whatsoever vessel it be, wherein any work is done, it must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the even; so it shall be cleansed.
BN: And if one of them dies and falls on something, that article, whatever its use, will be rendered unclean, whether it is made of wood, or cloth, or hide, or sackcloth. It must be put it in water; it will be unclean until the evening, and then it will be considered clean.
I can think of many modern hospitals whose levels of hygiene are not of this order!
The rendering clean is, as noted above, a factor of time; but surely there is a difference between an object or person rendered unclean at 9 in the morning, who washes himself and his clothes by 9.15, and has all day for time to become effective; between him, and the man who threw away the dead mouse in his kitchen just as the sun was setting. The laws of Kashrut do not make such a distinction. And yes, the mosquito you just swatted, and the fly you just chased down until you finally got him - their carcases render you unclean too.
Why is it EREV on this occasion, but always ARAV previously?
11:33 VE CHOL KELI CHERES ASHER YIPOL ME HEM EL TOCHO KOL ASHER BETOCHO YITMA VE OTO TISHBERU
וְכָל כְּלִי חֶרֶשׂ אֲשֶׁר יִפֹּל מֵהֶם אֶל תּוֹכוֹ כֹּל אֲשֶׁר בְּתוֹכוֹ יִטְמָא וְאֹתוֹ תִשְׁבֹּרוּ
KJ: And every earthen vessel, whereinto any of them falleth, whatsoever is in it shall be unclean; and ye shall break it.
BN: And any earthen vessel into which any of them falls, whatever may be in it, shall be rendered unclean, and you shall break it.
So the feather of a taboo bird falls onto your fruit bowl, or some wandering lizard crawls through your tent and pokes its nose into the jar where you have been keeping the grain; the food cannot now be eaten, and the vessel must be smashed. Tough law! Especially for a people that lived rather more open to the elements than we do.
11:34 MI KOL HA OCHEL ASHER YE'ACHEL ASHER YAVO ALAV MAYIM YITMA VE CHOL MASHKEH ASHER YISHATEH BE CHOL KELI YITMA
מִכָּל הָאֹכֶל אֲשֶׁר יֵאָכֵל אֲשֶׁר יָבוֹא עָלָיו מַיִם יִטְמָא וְכָל מַשְׁקֶה אֲשֶׁר יִשָּׁתֶה בְּכָל כְּלִי יִטְמָא
KJ: Of all meat which may be eaten, that on which such water cometh shall be unclean: and all drink that may be drunk in every suchvessel shall be unclean.
BN: Any permitted food that has come into contact with water from any such pot is rendered unclean, and any liquid that is drunk from such a pot is rendered unclean.
Confirming my clarification of the previous verse. But there is also a problem with this, because you may not know that a fly landed on the apple in your fruit bowl, and then flew off again, or that lizard came sniffing in the middle of the night.
11:35 VE CHOL ASHER YIPOL MI NIVLATAM ALAV YITMA TANUR VE CHIRAYIM YUCHATS TEME'IM HEM U TEME'IM YIHEYU LACHEM
וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִפֹּל מִנִּבְלָתָם עָלָיו יִטְמָא תַּנּוּר וְכִירַיִם יֻתָּץ טְמֵאִים הֵם וּטְמֵאִים יִהְיוּ לָכֶם
KJ: And every thing whereupon any part of their carcase falleth shall be unclean; whether it be oven, or ranges for pots, they shall be broken down: for they are unclean, and shall be unclean unto you.
BN: Anything that one of their carcasses falls on is rendered unclean; an oven or cooking pot must be broken up. They are unclean, and you shall regard them as unclean.
And in the world of the Maccabees later on, the same for an altar on which a conquering enemy deliberately sacrifices a pig - click here.
11:36 ACH MA'YAN U VOR MIKVEH MAYIM YIHEYEH TAHOR VE NOGE'A BE NIVLATAM YITMA
אַךְ מַעְיָן וּבוֹר מִקְוֵה מַיִם יִהְיֶה טָהוֹר וְנֹגֵעַ בְּנִבְלָתָם יִטְמָא
KJ: Nevertheless a fountain or pit, wherein there is plenty of water, shall be clean: but that which toucheth their carcase shall be unclean.
BN: However, a fountain or a cistern in which water is gathering shall be considered clean; but he who touches their carcass shall be rendered unclean.
Interestingly none of the ordinances until now have mentioned the Mikveh explicitly, though the use of water for cleaning both clothes and body have been mentioned. We had already been told that the cleaning, as well as the passage of time, were essential to the process of cleaning; what is odd about this, however, is the inferred assumption that living pools of water are themselves clean (they probably were in those days, before nitrates, phosphates, acid rain...)
11:37 VE CHI YIPOL MI NIVLATAM AL KOL ZERA ZERU'A ASHER YIZARE'A TAHOR HU
וְכִי יִפֹּל מִנִּבְלָתָם עַל כָּל זֶרַע זֵרוּעַ אֲשֶׁר יִזָּרֵעַ טָהוֹר הוּא
KJ: And if any part of their carcase fall upon any sowing seed which is to be sown, it shall be clean.
BN: But if any part of their carcass should fall, while it is growing, upon any seed which is to be sown, it is clean.
Yes, that is a nice exception; otherwise the seed would have to be dug out and there would be a reduction in the harvest that year. But if this, why not also my bowl of fruit and jar of grain, in verse 33? Presumably the difference lies between what is still alive and can grow out any threat, or will die anyway failing to do so, and something that has already been harvested, and therefore no longer has the capacity to do that.
11:38 VE CHI YUTAN MAYIM AL ZERA VE NAPHAL MI NIVLATAM ALAV TAM'E HU LACHEM
וְכִי יֻתַּן מַיִם עַל זֶרַע וְנָפַל מִנִּבְלָתָם עָלָיו טָמֵא הוּא לָכֶם
KJ: But if any water be put upon the seed, and any part of their carcase fall thereon, it shall be unclean unto you.
BN: But if water be put on the seed, and any part of the carcass fall on it, it shall be considered unclean to you.
This needs more thinking about, because it has an impact on modern irrigation systems that I am not aware anyone has ever considered (I am thinking of the religious moshavim and kibbutzim in Israel, rather than other farmers there or elsewhere); but it may also be the source of the superstition among some orthodox Jews that raw meat should never be washed in water, but taken straight to the oven, where the heat of cooking will anyway kill any bacteria or other unwanted extra that you might have thought to wash away.
samech break
11:39 VE CHI YAMUT MIN HA BEHEMAH ASHER HI LACHEM LE ACHLAH HA NOGE'A BE NIVLATAH YITMA AD HA AREV
וְכִי יָמוּת מִן הַבְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר הִיא לָכֶם לְאָכְלָה הַנֹּגֵעַ בְּנִבְלָתָהּ יִטְמָא עַד הָעָרֶב
KJ: And if any beast, of which ye may eat, die; he that toucheth the carcase thereof shall be unclean until the even.
BN: And if any animal which you are permitted to eat should die, he who touches its carcass shall be considered unclean until the evening.
"Die" here meaning of natural causes, rather than by slaughtering; though in fact the shochet is also regarded as ritually unclean at the end of each day and has to go through the purification ritual, including the ritual bath, as per the following verse.
11:40 VE HA OCHEL MI NIVLATAH YECHABES BEGADAV VE TAM'E AD HA AREV VE HA NOS'E ET NIVLATAH YECHABES BEGADAV VE TAM'E AD HA AREV
וְהָאֹכֵל מִנִּבְלָתָהּ יְכַבֵּס בְּגָדָיו וְטָמֵא עַד הָעָרֶב וְהַנֹּשֵׂא אֶת נִבְלָתָהּ יְכַבֵּס בְּגָדָיו וְטָמֵא עַדהָעָרֶב
KJ: And he that eateth of the carcase of it shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: he also that beareth the carcase of it shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even.
BN: And he who eats of its carcass shall wash his clothes, and be considered unclean until the evening; and he who carries its carcass, he too shall wash his clothes, and be considered unclean until the evening.
11:41 VE CHOL HA SHERETS HA SHORETS AL HA ARETS SHEKETS HU LO YE'ACHEL
וְכָל הַשֶּׁרֶץ הַשֹּׁרֵץ עַל הָאָרֶץ שֶׁקֶץ הוּא לֹא יֵאָכֵל
KJ: And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall be an abomination; it shall not be eaten.
BN: But every swarming creature that swarms on the Earth is prohibited; it shall not be eaten.
SHERETS: See my note at verse 10.
SHEKETS: Usually translated it as "abomination", or as "detestable", the latter being its literal meaning - though other translators have preferred "abhorrent", "loathsome" and even "repugnant" - all synonyms. My problem is not the accuracy, but the implication. Genesis 1:20, giving the fifth day of Creation, stated that: "VA YOMER ELOHIM, YISHRETSU HA MAYIM SHERETS NEPHESH CHAYAH, VE OPH YE'OPHEPH AL HA ARETS, AL PENAY RAKI'A HA SHAMAYIM - ויאמר אלהים ישרצו המים שרץ מפש חיה ועוף יעופף על-הארץ על-פני רקיע השמים - And Elohim said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let fowl fly above the Earth in the open firmament of the heavens." How, I have to ask, can creatures made by the deity at the very origins of the universe, be considered "detestable", especially when, at their Creation, the deity was well pleased with what he had created? And of course, this applies to all prohibited creatures, animal and reptile as well as bird, fish and insect. See also verse 44 below. "Detestable" must, then, be a bad translation of something else that was intended - and again I can only think that the word we are looking for is "taboo", in the sense of prohibited because sacred, and not prohibited because of some other negative criterion.
11:42 KOL HOLECH AL GACHON VE CHOL HOLECH AL ARBA AD KOL MARBEH RAGLAYIM LE CHOL HA SHORETS AL HA ARETS LO TOCHLUM KI SHEKETS HEM
כֹּל הוֹלֵךְ עַל גָּחוֹן וְכֹל הוֹלֵךְ עַל אַרְבַּע עַד כָּל מַרְבֵּה רַגְלַיִם לְכָל הַשֶּׁרֶץ הַשֹּׁרֵץ עַל הָאָרֶץ לֹא תֹאכְלוּם כִּי שֶׁקֶץ הֵם
KJ: Whatsoever goeth upon the belly, and whatsoever goeth upon allfour, or whatsoever hath more feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them ye shall not eat; for they are an abomination.
BN: Whatever crawls on its belly, and whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet, all such swarming creatures that swarm upon the Earth, you shall eat none of them, for they are all detestable.
This needs a little more thought, partly because there are some creatures, named above, which are acceptable though they go on all fours; and also because: what does all fours actually construe: a horse, a camel, a monkey, (a praying human)?
11:43 AL TESHAKTSU ET NAPHSHOTEYCHEM BE CHOL HA SHERETS HA SHORETS VE LO TITAMU BAHEM VE NITME'TEM BAM
אַל תְּשַׁקְּצוּ אֶת נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם בְּכָל הַשֶּׁרֶץ הַשֹּׁרֵץ וְלֹא תִטַּמְּאוּ בָּהֶם וְנִטְמֵתֶם בָּם
KJ: Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby.
BN: You shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms, neither shall you render yourselves unclean with them, that you should be defiled by them.
As noted before, one does not make a legal prohibition against something that is not being practiced. What, then, were they eating in the desert, or before in Egypt? Certain types of insect are delicacies throughout Africa, especially the locust.
11:44 KI ANI YHVH ELOHEYCHEM VE HITKADISHTEM VI HEYITEM KEDOSHIM KI KADOSH ANI VE LO TETAM'U ET NAPHSHOTEYCHEM BE CHOL HA SHERETS HA ROMES AL HA ARETS
כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם וְהִתְקַדִּשְׁתֶּם וִהְיִיתֶם קְדֹשִׁים כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אָנִי וְלֹא תְטַמְּאוּ אֶת נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם בְּכָל הַשֶּׁרֶץ הָרֹמֵשׂ עַל הָאָרֶץ
KJ: For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
BN: For I am YHVH your god; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy; neither shall you defile yourselves with any manner of swarming thing that crawls on the earth.
The concept of "holiness" here seems to be different from elsewhere; generally it means "set apart", but this has the sense that we are more accustomed to today, of something "higher", "more pure".
On this occasion the verb used is ROMES (רמש), which we recognize from the Creation story (Genesis 1:21 et al); elsewhere the verb has been Shorets (שרץ), taken from the same root as the noun.
11:45 KI ANI YHVH HA MA'ALEH ET'CHEM MEY ERETS MITSRAYIM LIHEYOT LACHEM LE ELOHIM VI HEYITEM KEDOSHIM KI KADOSH ANI
כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה הַמַּעֲלֶה אֶתְכֶם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם לִהְיֹת לָכֶם לֵאלֹהִים וִהְיִיתֶם קְדֹשִׁים כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אָנִי
KJ: For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
BN: For I am YHVH, who brought you up out of the land of Mitsrayim, to be your god; you shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
11:46 ZOT TORAT HA BEHEMAH VE HA OPH VE CHOL NEPHESH HA CHAYAH HA ROMESET BA MAYIM U LE CHAL NEPHESH HA SHORETSET AL HA ARETS
זֹאת תּוֹרַת הַבְּהֵמָה וְהָעוֹף וְכֹל נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת בַּמָּיִם וּלְכָל נֶפֶשׁ הַשֹּׁרֶצֶת עַל הָאָרֶץ
KJ: This is the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and of every creature that creepeth upon the earth:
BN: This is the law of the beast, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moves in the waters, and of every creature that swarms on the Earth;
Which appears to make a distinction between ROMES for "in the water" and SHORETS for "on dry land"; this requires us to re-examine the Creation story, and in doing so remember that Tohu and Bohu are variants on Tahamat and Behemot, of which Behemah is used for animals throughout this list of prohibited foods.
11:47 LEHAVDIL BEYN HA TAM'E U VEYN HA TAHOR U VEYN HA CHAYAH HA NE'ECHELET U VEYN HA CHAYAH ASHER LO TE'ACHEL
לְהַבְדִּיל בֵּין הַטָּמֵא וּבֵין הַטָּהֹר וּבֵין הַחַיָּה הַנֶּאֱכֶלֶת וּבֵין הַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר לֹא תֵאָכֵל
KJ: To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.
BN: To make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living thing that may be eaten and the living thing that may not be eaten.
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