seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Deuteronomy 14:3 Do not eat any detestable thing. 4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5 the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep.[a] 6 You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. 7 However, of those that chew the cud or that have a divided hoof you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the hyrax. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you. 8 The pig is also unclean; although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses.
a. Deuteronomy 14:5 The precise identification of some of the birds and animals in this chapter is uncertain.
I got this commentary from the bible.org site.
This animal is apparently mentioned in Lev. 11:6 as "hare" or "rabbit." It is interesting that Leviticus says (as assumed here) that the rabbit chews the cud. This is a good place to remind readers that the Israelites based their knowledge of nature on observable characteristic (phenomenological language). Rabbits do not, in actuality, chew the cud, but the rapid movement of their noses look as if they do. This is not an error in the Bible, but the recognition the ancients based their knowledge on observation, not modern, scientific methods.
This commentary comes from bibletrack.org.
Who would even consider eating a kite? Remove the sticks first if you do! Actually, it's a medium-sized member of the hawk family. What if a CLEAN animal dies a natural death? HEBREWS MAY NOT EAT IT! It's interesting, though, that it can be given to a non Hebrew to eat or even sold to a stranger. The laws regarding foods were given in Leviticus 11 also. You'll notice that, with regard to four-footed animals, the big indicator is found in the hoof and cud chewing. Leviticus 11, as well as this passage, do list the entire extent of "Kosher" practice for observant Jews today.
This designation of meat that is "unclean" is not new here. You will recall that Adam and Eve apparently started out as vegetarians Genesis 1:29-30, . Yet, when Noah was loading the ark with animals, God gave specific ark-loading instructions to Noah regarding "clean" and "unclean" animals in Genesis 7:2. It's actually not until after the ark experience that we see the first occurrence of a meat diet per God's instructions in Genesis 9:2-3 as part of the Noahic Covenant. So...the differentiation of which animals are okay to eat or not actually goes back to Noah.
This designation of meat that is "unclean" is not new here. You will recall that Adam and Eve apparently started out as vegetarians Genesis 1:29-30, . Yet, when Noah was loading the ark with animals, God gave specific ark-loading instructions to Noah regarding "clean" and "unclean" animals in Genesis 7:2. It's actually not until after the ark experience that we see the first occurrence of a meat diet per God's instructions in Genesis 9:2-3 as part of the Noahic Covenant. So...the differentiation of which animals are okay to eat or not actually goes back to Noah.
One more little side note..... one of the sites I generally visit had a list of translations and different animals were listed in a couple of the translations. The commentary was the same.... split hooves and cud chewing animals.... but I had never heard of a "coney" so I googled it.... and a coney could have been either a rabbit or a fish!
Here are a couple of pictures of a animals I wasn't familiar with. There are some animals listed in other translations I didn't know about either....
Hyrax
Roe Deer
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