Deuteronomy 14:3-21

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.

9 Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales.

10 But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean.

11 You may eat any clean bird.

12 But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture,

13 the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon,

14 any kind of raven,

15 the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk,

16 the little owl, the great owl, the white owl,

17 the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant,

18 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

19 All flying insects are unclean to you; do not eat them.

20 But any winged creature that is clean you may eat.

21 Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to the foreigner residing in any of your towns, and they may eat it, or you may sell it to any other foreigner. But you are a people holy to the LORD your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

Deuteronomy 14:3-21 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 14

In this chapter some cautions are given against the use of some rites and ceremonies in mourning for the dead, with the reason thereof, De 14:1,2 and instructions about what are lawful to be eaten, and what not, whether of beasts, fishes, or fowl, De 14:3-21, and concerning eating one sort of tithes both at the place God should choose, and within their own gates, De 14:22-29.

Cross References

• 1. Ezekiel 4:14
• 2. Leviticus 11:2-45; Acts 10:14
• 3. S Leviticus 7:23
• 4. S Deuteronomy 12:15
• 5. Job 39:1; Psalms 104:18
• 6. S Leviticus 5:2; Leviticus 11:26-27
• 7. S Genesis 1:11
• 8. Isaiah 34:15
• 9. S Genesis 8:7
• 10. Psalms 102:6; Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 14:23; Isaiah 34:11; Zephaniah 2:14
• 11. S Leviticus 20:25
• 12. S Leviticus 11:39; Leviticus 17:15; Leviticus 22:8
• 13. ver 2
• 14. S Exodus 23:19; Exodus 34:26

Footnotes

• [a] The precise identification of some of the birds and animals in this chapter is uncertain.