Distinctions between clean and unclean animals 11:1-23

We have here the same threefold division of animals that inhabit the land, sea, and air as the one that appears in the story of creation (Gen. 1:20-23).

"It has long been recognized . . . that the order of the purity laws in Leviticus 11 follows that of the creation of animal life in Genesis 1 (Rashi). Moreover, just as in Genesis 1 God distinguised good' and evil' in his new creation, so also in Leviticus 11 God distinguished the clean' from the unclean.' In addition, Leviticus 11-16 has numerous parallels to the pattern of Genesis 1-11."¹¹⁸

11:1-8 Note that God began positively. He told the Israelites what they could eat (vv. 2-3; cf. Gen. 1:29-30; 2:16-17). Then He gave them a list of unclean land animals (vv. 4-8).

Perhaps animals with cloven hoofs were unclean because they had only two digits instead of the basic five and were therefore thought of as abnormal.¹¹⁹

Apparently the technical definition of chewing the cud that we use today is not what the Hebrews understood by chewing the cud. Today we use this term to describe animals that do not initially chew their food thoroughly but swallow it and later regurgitate it and then chew it thoroughly. Some of the animals described in Leviticus as chewing the cud do not do that (e.g., camels [i.e., one-humped dromedaries], conies [i.e., rock hyraxes], hares). However these animals do appear to chew their food thoroughly, so this may be what the Israelites thought of as chewing the cud.

Any dead animal was unclean, probably because death was not the normal condition of an animal.

"Sheep, goats, and oxen were the standard sacrificial animals of pastoralists. They have in common cloven hoofs and rumination. Interpreting this theologically one might say that as God had limited his diet' to these animals, so must his people. It is man's duty to imitate his creator (vv. 44-45). When the Israelite restricted his food to God's chosen animals, he recalled that he owed all his spiritual privileges to divine election. As God had chosen certain animals for sacrifice, so he had chosen one nation out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth' to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation' (Deut. 7:6; Exod. 19:6)."¹²⁰

11:9-12 Probably the Israelites could eat water creatures with fins and scales because these are the normal means of propulsion among fishes. As has already been observed (v. 3), the means of locomotion and the mode of eating were the two types of tests used to distinguish between clean and unclean animals. Water creatures without fins and scales did not have the normal means of locomotion for their element.

11:13-19 Moses distinguished various kinds of birds in these verses. God prohibited 20 varieties. Again their feeding habits seem to be the key to their uncleanness. The unclean birds ate flesh with the blood in it, something that God also forbade among His people (ch. 17).

11:20-23 These verses deal with insects. Perhaps the fact that certain insects swarmed rather than flying in a more direct and natural way made them unclean. Locusts that hopped may have been clean since this is the normal form of locomotion for birds, which they resembled. The varieties of locusts that crawled were unclean, perhaps because that appeared to be abnormal movement for this insect.¹²¹