Leviticus 11:10-13

11:10 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. 11:11 Since they are detestable to you, you must not eat their meat and their carcass you must detest. 11:12 Any creature in the water that does not have both fins and scales is detestable to you.

Clean and Unclean Birds

11:13 “‘These you are to detest from among the birds – they must not be eaten, because they are detestable: the griffon vulture, the bearded vulture, the black vulture,

Leviticus 11:20

Clean and Unclean Insects

11:20 “‘Every winged swarming thing that walks on all fours is detestable to you.

Leviticus 11:41-42

11:41 Every swarming thing that swarms on the land is detestable; it must not be eaten. 11:42 You must not eat anything that crawls on its belly or anything that walks on all fours or on any number of legs of all the swarming things that swarm on the land, because they are detestable.

Deuteronomy 14:3

14:3 You must not eat any forbidden thing.

Ezekiel 4:14

4:14 And I said, “Ah, sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat has never entered my mouth.”


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.

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

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

tn Heb “until all multiplying of legs.”

tn The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (toevah, “forbidden; abhorrent”) describes anything detestable to the Lord because of its innate evil or inconsistency with his own nature and character. See note on the word “abhorrent” in Deut 7:25. Cf. KJV “abominable”; NIV “detestable”; NRSV “abhorrent.”

tn The Hebrew term refers to sacrificial meat not eaten by the appropriate time (Lev 7:18; 19:7).