Leviticus 11:8

8 You may not eat their meat nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.

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}

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Leviticus 11:8 In-Context

6 The rabbit chews the cud but doesn't have a split hoof so is unclean.

7 The pig has a split hoof, divided in two, but doesn't chew the cud and so is unclean.

8 You may not eat their meat nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.

9 "Among the creatures that live in the water of the seas and streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.

10 But anything that doesn't have fins and scales, whether in seas or streams, whether small creatures in the shallows or huge creatures in the deeps, you are to detest.