Leviticus 11:8

8 Do not eat any of their meat or touch their carcasses-they are unclean for you.[a]

Leviticus 11:8 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 11:8

Of their flesh shall ye not eat
Meaning, not of swine only, but of the camel, coney, and hare:

and their carcass shall ye not touch;
which must not be understood of touching them in any sense; for then it would have been unlawful for a Jew to have rode upon a camel, or to take out and make use of hog's lard in medicine; but of touching them in order to kill them, and prepare them for food, and eat them; and indeed all unnecessary touching of them is forbidden, lest it should bring them to the eating of them; though perhaps it may chiefly respect the touching of them dead:

they [are] unclean to you:
one and all of them; for as this was said of each of them in particular, so now of all of them together; and which holds good of all wild creatures not named, to whom the description above belongs, and which used to be eaten by other nations; some of which were called Pamphagi, from eating all sorts, and others Agriophagi, from eating wild creatures, as lions, panthers, elephants {l}


FOOTNOTES:

F12 Plin. l. 6. c. 30. Solinus, c. 43.

Leviticus 11:8 In-Context

6 the hare, though it chews the cud, does not have hooves-it is unclean for you;
7 the pig, though it has divided hooves, does not chew the cud-it is unclean for you.
8 Do not eat any of their meat or touch their carcasses-they are unclean for you.
9 "This [is what] you may eat from all that is in the water: You may eat everything in the water that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or streams.
10 But these are to be detestable to you: everything that does not have fins and scales in the seas or streams, among all the swarming things and [other] living creatures in the water.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Lv 7:21; 11:24-27; Isa 52:11; 2 Co 6:17
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