Deuteronomy 14:3-21

14:3 You must not eat any forbidden¹ thing. 14:4 These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 14:5 the ibex,² the gazelle,³ the deer,⁴ the wild goat, the antelope,⁵ the wild oryx,⁶ and the mountain sheep.⁷ 14:6 You may eat any animal that has hooves divided into two parts and that chews the cud.⁸ 14:7 However, you may not eat the following animals among those that chew the cud or those that have divided hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger.⁹ (Although they chew the cud, they do not have divided hooves and are therefore ritually impure to you). 14:8 Also the pig is ritually impure to you; though it has divided hooves,¹⁰ it does not chew the cud. You may not eat their meat or even touch their remains. 14:9 These you may eat from among water creatures: anything with fins and scales you may eat, 14:10 but whatever does not have fins and scales you may not eat; it is ritually impure to you. 14:11 All ritually clean birds you may eat. 14:12 These are the ones you may not eat: the eagle,¹¹ the vulture,¹² the black vulture,¹³ 14:13 the kite, the black kite, the dayyah¹⁴ after its species, 14:14 every raven after its species, 14:15 the ostrich,¹⁵ the owl,¹⁶ the seagull, the falcon¹⁷ after its species, 14:16 the little owl, the long-eared owl, the white owl,¹⁸ 14:17 the jackdaw,¹⁹ the carrion vulture, the cormorant, 14:18 the stork, the heron after its species, the hoopoe, the bat, 14:19 and any winged thing on the ground are impure to you – they may not be eaten.²⁰ 14:20 You may eat any clean bird. 14:21 You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages²¹ and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.²²

¹tn The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “forbidden; abhorrent”) describes anything detestable to the Lord because of its innate evil or inconsistency with his own nature and character. See note on the word “abhorrent” in Deut 7:25. Cf. KJV “abominable”; NIV “detestable”; NRSV “abhorrent.”

²tn The Hebrew term אַיָּל (’ayyal) may refer to a type of deer (cf. Arabic ’ayyal). Cf. NAB “the red deer.”

³tn The Hebrew term צְבִי (tsÿvi) is sometimes rendered “roebuck” (so KJV).

⁴tn The Hebrew term יַחְמוּר (yakhmur) may refer to a “fallow deer”; cf. Arabic yahmur (“deer”). Cf. NAB, NIV, NCV “roe deer”; NEB, NRSV, NLT “roebuck.”

⁵tn The Hebrew term דִּישֹׁן (dishon) is a hapax legomenon. Its referent is uncertain but the animal is likely a variety of antelope (cf. NEB “white-rumped deer”; NIV, NRSV, NLT “ibex”).

⁶tn The Hebrew term תְּאוֹ (tÿ’o; a variant is תּוֹא, to’) could also refer to another species of antelope. Cf. NEB “long-horned antelope”; NIV, NRSV “antelope.”

⁷tn The Hebrew term זֶמֶר (zemer) is another hapax legomenon with the possible meaning “wild sheep.” Cf. KJV, ASV “chamois”; NEB “rock-goat”; NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “mountain sheep.”

⁸tn The Hebrew text includes “among the animals.” This has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁹tn The Hebrew term שָׁפָן (shafan) may refer to the “coney” (cf. KJV, NIV) or hyrax (“rock badger,” cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).

¹⁰tc The MT lacks (probably by haplography) the phrase וְשֹׁסַע שֶׁסַע פַּרְסָה (vÿshosa’ shesa’ parsah, “and is clovenfooted,” i.e., “has parted hooves”), a phrase found in the otherwise exact parallel in Lev 11:7. The LXX and Smr attest the longer reading here. The meaning is, however, clear without it.

¹¹tn NEB “the griffon-vulture.”

¹²tn The Hebrew term פֶּרֶס (peres) describes a large vulture otherwise known as the ossifrage (cf. KJV). This largest of the vultures takes its name from its habit of dropping skeletal remains from a great height so as to break the bones apart.

¹³tn The Hebrew term עָזְנִיָּה (’ozniyyah) may describe the black vulture (so NIV) or it may refer to the osprey (so NAB, NRSV, NLT), an eagle-like bird subsisting mainly on fish.

¹⁴tn The Hebrew term is דַּיָּה (dayyah). This, with the previous two terms (רָאָה [ra’ah] and אַיָּה [’ayyah]), is probably a kite of some species but otherwise impossible to specify.

¹⁵tn Or “owl.” The Hebrew term בַּת הַיַּעֲנָה (bat hayya’anah) is sometimes taken as “ostrich” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT), but may refer instead to some species of owl (cf. KJV “owl”; NEB “desert-owl”; NIV “horned owl”).

¹⁶tn The Hebrew term תַּחְמָס (takhmas) is either a type of owl (cf. NEB “short-eared owl”; NIV “screech owl”) or possibly the nighthawk (so NRSV, NLT).

¹⁷tn The Hebrew term נֵץ (nets) may refer to the falcon or perhaps the hawk (so NEB, NIV).

¹⁸tn The Hebrew term תִּנְשֶׁמֶת (tinshemet) may refer to a species of owl (cf. ASV “horned owl”; NASB, NIV, NLT “white owl”) or perhaps even to the swan (so KJV); cf. NRSV “water hen.”

¹⁹tn The Hebrew term קָאַת (qa’at) may also refer to a type of owl (NAB, NIV, NRSV “desert owl”) or perhaps the pelican (so KJV, NASB, NLT).

²⁰tc The MT reads the Niphal (passive) for expected Qal (“you [plural] must not eat”); cf. Smr, LXX. However, the harder reading should stand.

²¹tn Heb “gates” (also in vv. 27, 28, 29).

²²sn Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. This strange prohibition – one whose rationale is unclear but probably related to pagan ritual – may seem out of place here but actually is not for the following reasons: (1) the passage as a whole opens with a prohibition against heathen mourning rites (i.e., death, vv. 1-2) and closes with what appear to be birth and infancy rites. (2) In the other two places where the stipulation occurs (Exod 23:19 and Exod 34:26) it similarly concludes major sections. (3) Whatever the practice signified it clearly was abhorrent to the Lord and fittingly concludes the topic of various breaches of purity and holiness as represented by the ingestion of unclean animals (vv. 3-21). See C. M. Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” HTR 69 (1976): 1-7; J. Milgrom, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid In Its Mother’s Milk,” BRev 1 (1985): 48-55; R. J. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “In Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscriptions,” BRev 1 (1985): 56-58; and M. Haran, “Seething a Kid in its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979): 23-35.