John Gill Commentary Leviticus 11

And the Lord spoke to Moses, and to Aaron
The one being the chief magistrate, and the other the high priest, and both concerned to see the following laws put into execution; according to Jarchi, the Lord spoke to Moses that he might speak to Aaron; but being now in office, and one part of his office being to distinguish between clean and unclean, the following discourse is directed equally to him as to Moses:

saying to them ;
as follows.

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying
For to them only belong the following laws, and not unto the Gentiles, as Jarchi rightly observes; these were parts of the ceremonial law, which was peculiarly given to them, and lay, among other things, in meats and drinks, and now abolished; for it is not what goes into a man that defiles him; nor is anything common or unclean of itself, but every creature of God is good if received with thanksgiving.

The sons of Noah had free liberty, without any restraint or limitation, of using for food any living creature that moved upon the face of the earth; in the choice of which they were left to exercise their reason and judgment, and is the case with us now; but as men have not so nice a smell as some animals have, and cannot distinguish by their senses so well as they what food is most wholesome, which makes the exercise of their reason and judgment necessary, and the people of the Jews being a special people, and for whom the Lord had a peculiar regard; for the sake of their health, and to preserve them from diseases they were subject to, such as the leprosy and others, and to direct them to what was most salubrious and healthful, gave them the following laws; and which, though they are not obligatory upon us, yet may be a direction to us, in the use of what may be most suitable and proper food for us, the difference of climates, and of the constitutions of men's bodies, being considered:

not that we are to suppose, that the case of health was the only reason of delivering out these laws to the children of Israel, for other ends, besides that, may be thought to be had in view; as to assert his sovereign right to the creatures, and his disposal of them to them according to his will and pleasure; to lay a restraint on their appetites, to prevent luxury, and to teach them self denial, and compliance with his will; as also to keep them the more from the company and conversation of the Gentiles, by whom they otherwise might be led into idolatry; and to give them an aversion to their idols, to whom the creatures forbidden them to eat, many of them were either now or would be sacred to them; and chiefly to excite to a care for purity, both inward and outward, and create in the man abhorrence of those vices which may be signified by the ill qualities of several of the creatures; and to instruct them in the difference between holy and unholy persons, with whom they should or should not have communion; see (Acts 10:11–15Acts 10:28)

these are the beasts that ye shall eat among all the beasts that
are on the earth ;
they are not particularly mentioned here, but they are in (Deuteronomy 14:4Deuteronomy 14:5) and they are these ten; the ox, the sheep, and the goat, the hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois; of all which, (See Gill on Deuteronomy 14:4) (See Gill on Deuteronomy 14:5): here only some general things are observed to describe them by, as follow.

Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is cloven footed
That is, whose hoof is parted and cloven quite through; for there are some creatures that have partitions in their feet, but not quite through, they are parted above, but underneath are joined together by a skin; wherefore both these phrases are used to describe the beasts lawful to be eaten: the Egyptians seem to have borrowed this law from the Jews, for Chaeremon says ^F24, that they abstain from such four footed beasts that have only one hoof, or have many partitions, or have no horns: and so the Targum of Jonathan adds here, ``which have horns,'' which, though not in the text, agrees well with the creatures allowed by this law to be eaten, see (Deuteronomy 14:4Deuteronomy 14:5) for such are all horned cattle; nor are there any cattle horned forbid to be eaten:

and cheweth the cud among the beasts, that shall you eat :
who having no upper teeth cannot thoroughly chew their food at once, and therefore bring it up again out of their stomachs into their mouths and chew it over again, that it may be better prepared for digestion in the stomach, and so yield better nourishment; and this makes the flesh of such creatures fitter for food: and these creatures have more stomachs than one; the ventricles for rumination are four; the first is the paunch, which in oxen is so big as to hold food of fifty pound weight, the second the honeycomb, the third the tripe, the fourth the honey tripe, and to which are helpful the pectoral muscle, the abdomen, with the diaphragm ^F25:

all this might have a moral and spiritual meaning in it, and may be applied either to ministers of the word; who ought rightly to divide the word of truth, and give to everyone their part, and who should walk uprightly according to it, and who should give themselves up wholly to the meditation of it, and thoroughly digest it; and study to show themselves workmen, that need not to be ashamed;

or to private Christians, who have a discerning spirit in spiritual things, and can distinguish not only morality from immorality, but spiritual things from carnal, heavenly things from earthly, the voice of Christ from the voice of a stranger, and the doctrines of Christ from the doctrines of men; and who also walk as they should do, by faith on Christ, in the ways of God, and according to the Gospel; these chew the cud, meditate on the word, feed upon it while delivered, recall it, and have it brought to their remembrance by the divine Spirit, and ponder it in their hearts; see (Psalms 1:1Psalms 1:2) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F24: Apud Porphyr. de Abstinentia, l. 4. sect. 7.
• F25: Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 2. p. 278, 279.

Nevertheless, these shall you not eat
To whom one of these descriptive characters may agree but not the other:

of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof :
there being some that chewed the cud but did not divide the hoof; others that divided the hoof but did not chew the cud, of which instances are given as follow:

[as] the camel, because he chews the cud, but divides not the
hoof; he [is] unclean to you ;
and not to be eaten, whether male or female; or rather, "though he chews the cud"; and this account agrees with what naturalists give of it; so Aristotle ^F26 says it has not both rows of teeth, but wants its upper teeth, and chews as horned cattle do, and has bellies like theirs; for they have more bellies than one, as the sheep, and goat, and hart, and others; since the service of the mouth is not sufficient to grind the food for want of teeth, this is supplied by the bellies, which receive the food one after another; in the first it is undigested, in the second somewhat more digested, in the third more fully, in the fourth completely: and so many bellies the camel has, as a very learned searcher ^F1 into these things observes; the first is the biggest, the second very small, the third much greater than the second, and the fourth equal to the second; in the second belly between the tunics, he says, seem to be the hydrophylacia, in which the water they drink is kept. This is very commodious for these animals passing through sandy deserts, so that they can long bear thirst: Pliny

FOOTNOTES:

• F26: De Part. Animal. l. 3. c. 14.
• F1: Scheuchzer. ib. p. 280.
• F2: says four days: Leo Africanus ^F3 relates a method used by travellers in the deserts of Lybia, who being in extreme want of water kill one of their camels, out of whose intestines they press out water; this they drink, this they carry about till they find a well, or must die with thirst: and the account also which is given of the feet of these creatures agrees; it parts the hoof, but not thoroughly, it is not cleft quite through, and so comes not up to Moses's descriptive character of clean creatures; its hoof is divided in two, but so divided, as Aristotle ^F4 observes, that it is but little divided on the back part unto the second joint of the toes; the fore part is very little divided, to the first joint of the toes, and there is something between the parts, as in the feet of geese: and so Pliny says ^F5 it has two hoofs, but the lower part of the foot is but very little divided, so that it is not thoroughly cleft: but though the flesh of these creatures was forbidden the Jews, it was eaten by people of other nations; both Aristotle ^F6 and Pliny ^F7 commend the milk of camels; and by the former the flesh of them is said to be exceeding sweet; and Diodorus Siculus relates ^F8 , that what with their milk and their flesh, which is eaten, as well as on account of their carrying burdens, they are very profitable unto men; and Strabo ^F9 says, the Nomades eat the flesh and milk of camels; and so the Africans, according to Leo Africanus ^F11 ; and a countryman of ours ^F12 , who lived some time in Arabia, relates, that when a camel falls they kill it, and the poorer sort of the company eat it; and he says that he himself ate of camel's flesh, and that it was very sweet and nourishing: these creatures, in the mystic sense, may be an emblem of such persons, that carry their heads high, are proud and haughty, that boast of their riches, or trust in their righteousness.
• F3: Descriptio Africae, l. 1. p. 75.
• F4: Hist. Animal. l. 2. c. 1.
• F5: L. 11. c. 45.
• F6: Hist. Animal. l. 6. c. 26.
• F7: Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 41.
• F8: Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 137.
• F9: Geograph. l. 16. p. 535.
• F11: Descriptio Africae, l. 1. p. 48. l. 6. 617, 620. Arab. Geogr. Clim. 1. par. 1. 3.
• F12: Pitts's Account of the Mahometans, c. 8. p. 106. Vid. Hieron, adv. Jovinian. l. 2.

And the coney
Or rabbit:

because he chews the cud ;
or "though he chews"; which yet, some observe, the coney or rabbit does not, it having upper teeth, and therefore they think some other creature is meant by Shaphan, the word here used; and Bochart ^F13 is of opinion, that the Aljarbuo of the Arabians, a sort of mountain mouse, is meant, which chews the cud and divides not the hoof, and resides in rocks, which agrees with the account of the Shaphan in (Proverbs 30:26) but this is rejected by Dr. Shaw ^F14 , who takes the creature here to be the Daman Israel, or Israel's lamb, an animal of Mount Lebanon, a harmless creature of the same size and quality with the rabbit, and with the like incurvating posture, and disposition or the fore teeth, but is of a browner colour, with smaller eyes, and a head more pointed, like the marmots; the fore feet likewise are short, and the hinder are nearly as long in proportion as those of the jerboa; and though this animal is known to burrow sometimes in the ground, yet its usual residence and refuge is in the holes and clifts of the rocks;

but a learned man ^F15 , and very inquisitive in the things of nature, tells us, that the "cuniculus", coney, or rabbit, this sort of animals do chew half an hour after eating:

but divides not the hoof ;
which is well known of this creature:

he [is] unclean to you ;
not fit or proper to be eaten of, but to be abstained from as an unclean animal; and may be an emblem of timorous persons, as these creatures by Aristotle ^F16 are observed to be, and it is well known they are; even of the fearful and unbelieving, reckoned among the impure, who will have their portion in the lake of fire, (Revelation 21:8) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F13: Hierozoic par. 1. l. 3. c. 33. col. 1015, 1016.
• F14: Travels, p. 177, 348. Ed. 2.
• F15: Scheuchzer. ut supra, (Physic. Sacr. vol. 2.) p. 281.
• F16: Hist. Animal. l. 1. c. 1.