translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: LEV

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “the animal,” but as a collective plural, and so throughout this chapter.


text: Heb “every divider of hoof and cleaver of the cleft of hooves”; KJV, ASV “parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted.”


text: 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.


text: Heb “this,” but as a collective plural (see the following context).


text: Heb “because a chewer of the cud it is” (see also vv. 5 and 6 ).


text: Heb “and hoof there is not dividing” (see also vv. 5 and 6 ).


text: See the note on Lev 11:3 .


text: 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”).


text: Heb “all which have fin and scale” (see also vv. 10 and 12 ).


text: Heb “in the water, in the seas and in the streams” (see also vv. 10 and 12 ).


text: 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.


text: Heb “and the buzzard to its kind” (see also vv. 16 and 19 for the same expression “of any kind”).


text: Heb “every crow to its kind.” Many English versions (e.g., KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) render this as “raven.”


text: 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).


text: Heb “the one walking on four” (cf. vv. 21-23 and 27-28 ).


text: Heb “which to it are lower legs from above to its feet” (reading the Qere “to it” rather than the Kethib “not”).


text: 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.


text: Heb “and to these.”


text: 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 .


text: Heb “divides hoof and cleft it does not cleave”; KJV “divideth the hoof, and is not clovenfooted”; NLT “divided but unsplit hooves.”


text: Heb “the one walking on four.” Compare Lev 11:20-23 .


text: 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.


text: Heb “And all which it shall fall on it from them.”


text: Heb “in water it shall be brought.”


text: Heb “And any earthenware vessel which shall fall from them into its midst.”


text: Heb “all which is in its midst.”


text: Heb “which water comes on it.”


text: Heb “any drink which may be drunk”; NASB “any liquid which may be drunk”; NLT “any beverage that is in such an unclean container.”


text: 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 ).


text: Heb “be unclean.”


text: Heb “a spring and a cistern collection of water”; NAB, NIV “for collecting water.”


text: Heb “And if there falls from their carcass on any seed of sowing which shall be sown.”


text: This word for “animal” refers to land animal quadrupeds, not just any beast that dwells on the land (cf. 11:2 ).


text: Heb “which is food for you” or “which is for you to eat.”


text: Heb “goes” (KJV, ASV “goeth”); NIV “moves about”; NLT “slither along.” The same Hebrew term is translated “walks” in the following clause.


text: Heb “until all multiplying of legs.”


text: Heb “by any of the swarming things that swarm.”


text: Heb “to be to you for a God.”


text: Heb “for all the creatures.”