Charles Ellicott Commentary Leviticus 11:6

"And the hare, because she cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, she is unclean unto you." — Leviticus 11:6 (ASV)

And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but. —Better, though he cheweth the cud, yet.

Other nations, too, shunned the flesh of hares. The Parsees considered the hare as the most unclean of all animals, and the ancient Britons abstained from eating it because of the loathsome disorders to which the hare is subject.

Like the rabbit, or the hyrax, the hare does not have the characteristic stomach of the true ruminant; but, like the rabbit, the hare, when sitting at rest, moves its jaws in such a way that it appears to masticate.

Since the object of the legislator was to furnish the people with marks by which they were to distinguish the clean from the unclean animals, he necessarily adopted those which were commonly understood and which alone were intelligible in those days.