All winged animals that creep are unclean to you; ye shall not eat of them[Brenton]. Key to not misconstruing "walking on four feet" with having only four feet, is that this verse does not stand alone, separate from 11:21 and 11:22. This verse should not be read as expressly prohibiting only winged insects that walk on four feet, and by omission no others; all invertebrates are prohibited, regardless of wings and legs. This section is defining an exception for four types of locusts: within the general prohibition against all invertebrates, there is a subset of winged, six-legged insects that walk on four feet [which incl. mantises and Nymphalidae butterflies], which is still prohibited as a whole; but within this subset is another subset that have an additional pair of legs for leaping [which excl. mantises and Nymphalidae butterflies]; within this subset are four types of locusts that are permitted.
locust; [meaning] the caterpillar; per LSJ,
locust, or its wingless larva.Usually translates חסיל or ילק, grasshopper. For Hb. ארבה ʾrbh.
a kind of locust.Occurs only here in LXX. For Hb. סלעם slʿm.
locust, cricket, grasshopper; per LSJ,
grasshopper, locust, cricket.For Hb. חרגל ḥrgl.
snake-fighter; a kind of locust, with no wings; per LSJ, adj.
fighting with serpents; as Subst., a kind of locust, and the ichneumon [wasp].Only occurs here in LXX. For Hb. חגב ḥgb.
These you may eat: the arbeh after its kind, and the sela'am after its kind, and the chargol after its kind, and the chagav after its kind....
The Torah lists four types of kosher grasshoppers (and addsaccording to its kindafter each, which the Talmud explains to include four further kinds). It's difficult to definitively translate the four names which appear here. But consider the following. Although there are over ten thousand species of grasshoppers, only a few dozen are locusts – i.e., grasshoppers that form swarms. And of the few dozen species of locusts, only four occur in Biblical lands! And of these four, by far the most common swarming locust is the desert locust, Schistocercia gregaria, which occasionally appears in swarms in Egypt and Israel even today... Second place is taken by the migratory locust, Locusta migratoria, while the Egyptian locust and Moroccan locust come in a distant third and fourth place.
From this [locust] category, you may eat the following: The red locust after its species, the yellow locust after its species, the spotted gray locus after its species and the white locust after its species.
Of these you may eat the following: locusts of every variety; all varieties of bald locust; crickets of every variety; and all varieties of grasshopper.
« Ch 10 | » Ch 12 |
OPTIONS
CHAPTERS
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
LEXICON
TEXTS
Greek New TestamentGreek SeptuagintHebrew BibleParallel GospelsParallel LXX-HBParallel HB-LXX
LANGUAGES
Latina
ABOUT
The Kata Biblon Wiki English Translation (WET) and Wiki Latin Translation are publicly editable translations of the Greek New Testament, Greek Septuagint, and Hebrew Bible.
SEARCH OPTIONS
KEYMAP
a | b | g | d | e | z | h | q | i | k | l | m |
α | β | γ | δ | ε | ζ | η | θ | ι | κ | λ | μ |
n | x | o | p | r | s | t | u | f | c | y | w |
ν | ξ | ο | π | ρ | σ | τ | υ | φ | χ | ψ | ω |
) | ( | / | \ | = | | | + | ' | v | @ | # | * |
᾿ | ῾ | ´ | ` | ῀ | ͺ | ¨ | ’ | ϝ | ϛ | ʹ | % |
VERSES