Leviticus 11:3

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,

Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat. Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is cloven-footed, and cheweth the cud.

Cloven-footed, to wit, is divided into two parts only, as in the coney, swine, &c., whereas the horse, camel, &c. have their hoofs entire and undivided. This clause is added only to explain and limit the former, as appears from ; for the feet or hoofs of dogs, cats, &c. are parted or cloven into many parts. Cheweth the cud, Heb. and bringeth up the cud, i.e. the meat once chewed out of the stomach into the mouth again, that it may be chewed a second time for better concoction. And this branch is to be joined with the former, both properties being necessary for the allowed beasts. But the reason hereof must be resolved into the will of the lawgiver; though interpreters guess that God would hereby signify their duties by the first, that of dividing the word of God aright, and discerning between good and evil, between God’ s institutions and men’ s inventions; and by the latter, that duty of recalling God’ s word to our minds, and serious meditation upon it.

Leviticus 11:3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, [and] cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.Ver. 3. Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and cheweth the cud.] To teach them to think upon God’ s commandments to do them, cleansing themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. Moreover clean Christians, typed by those clean beasts, must rightly part the hoof; that is, rightly divide their time; giving a due share thereof to either of their callings.

(3) Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted.—Better, Whatsoever is clovenfooted, and entirely separateth the hoofs. The first rule laid down by which the clean quadruped is to be distinguished is that the hoofs must be completely cloven or divided above as well as below, or, as the parallel passage in Deuteronomy 14:6 has it, “and cleaveth the cleft into two claws.” Such is the case in the foot of the ox, the sheep, and the goat, where the hoof is wholly divided below as much as above. The foot of the dog, the cat, and the lion, though exhibiting a division into several distinct toes or claws, is contrary to the regulation here laid down, inasmuch as the division is simply on the upper side, the lower side being united by a membrane, and hence the hoof is not “entirely separated.”And cheweth the cud.—In addition to the foot being perfectly cloven, the quadruped to be clean is to be ruminating. The canon which obtained during the second Temple is thus formulated: “Every quadruped which has no upper teeth is known to be ruminant, and when it is also clovenfooted is clean.” According to the law of Manu the highest Hindoo castes were also forbidden to eat the flesh or drink the milk of quadrupeds with uncloven hoof. The same was the case with the Egyptian priests: they abstained from eating the flesh of any animal which had uncloven hoofs or many claws.

Verse 3. Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is cloven-footed] These two words mean the same thing - a divided hoof, such as that of the ox, where the hoof is divided into two toes, and each toe is cased with horn. Cheweth the cud] Ruminates; casts up the grass, c., which had been taken into the stomach for the purpose of mastication. Animals which chew the cud, or ruminate, are provided with two, three or four stomachs. The ox has four: in the first or largest, called the ventriculus or paunch, the food is collected without being masticated, the grass, c., being received into it as the beast crops it from the earth. The food, by the force of the muscular coats of this stomach, and the liquors poured in, is sufficiently macerated after which, formed into small balls, it is thrown up by the oesophagus into the mouth, where it is made very small by mastication or chewing, and then sent down into the second stomach, into which the oesophagus or gullet opens, as well as into the first, ending exactly where the two stomachs meet. This is what is termed chewing the cud. The second stomach, which is called the reticulum, honeycomb, bonnet, or king's hood, has a great number of small shallow cells on its inward surface, of a pentagonal or five-sided form, exactly like the cells in a honey-comb in this the food is farther macerated, and then pushed onward into the third stomach, called the omasum or many-plies, because its inward surface is covered with a great number of thin membraneous partitions. From this the food passes into the fourth stomach, called the abomasum, or rede. In this stomach it is digested, and from the digested mass the chyle is formed, which, being absorbed by the lacteal vessels, is afterwards thrown into the mass of blood, and becomes the principle of nutrition to all the solids and fluids of the body. The intention of rumination, or chewing the cud, seems to be, that the food may be sufficiently comminuted, that, being more fully acted on by the stomachs, it may afford the greatest possible portion of nutritive juices. The word cud is probably not originally Saxon, though found in that language in the same signification in which it is still used. Junius, with great show of probability, derives it from the Cambro-British chwyd, a vomit, as it is the ball of food vomited, or thrown up, from the first stomach or paunch through the oesophagus into the mouth, which is called by this name. Those who prefer a Saxon derivation may have it in the verb [Anglo-Saxon] whence our word chew; and so cud might be considered a contraction of chewed, but this is not so likely as the preceding.

Ch. Leviticus 11:1-23 [51]. The Distinction between Clean and Unclean Food [51] For the sources from which this ch. comes, and its relation from a critical point of view to Deuteronomy 14:3 ff. see App. I (c), pp. 162 f.One principle underlying this distinction appears to have been that animals which were recognised as in any way objects of worship by heathen neighbours, or even supposed by them to be connected with unseen supernatural beings, were to be considered unclean. See Bertholet in KHC., introd. note to this ch. But in other cases the prohibition probably rested on the animal’s repulsive appearance or uncleanly habits, or on sanitary or totemistic grounds. See Driver, Deut. p. 164, and Rob.-Sm. OTJC.2 p. 366. A list of animals which may and may not be eaten is given in Deuteronomy 14:3-20; it has close verbal affinity with Leviticus 11:2-21 of this ch. The two passages are placed side by side in Driver (ICC.) Deut. P. 157 f. Both lists are divided into classes: (a) Beasts Leviticus 11:2-8. Cp. Deuteronomy 14:3-8 Deut. enumerates three domestic, and seven wild animals, as clean beasts which may be eaten. Lev. does not mention the clean beasts, but both give their two distinguishing marks—‘Whatsoever parteth the hoof … and cheweth the cud,’ and specify the same four beasts which have not both of these marks as unclean. Lev. is more diffuse, but employs the same expressions as Deut. (b) Fishes Leviticus 11:9-12. Cp. Deuteronomy 14:9-10 The same criterion of cleanness, having ‘scales and fins,’ is given both in Lev. and Deut., but Lev. is more diffuse, and introduces a word (Heb. shéḳ ?eẓ ?) detestation, used frequently in this ch., also in Leviticus 7:21, and Isaiah 66:17; Ezekiel 8:10. Another and commoner form (shiḳ ?ḳ ?uẓ ?) occurs in Deuteronomy 29:16. No fish is mentioned by name, and the distinction between clean and unclean fishes in particular cases was determined by the Jewish rabbis. (c) Birds Leviticus 11:13-19. Cp. Deuteronomy 14:11-18 Deut. begins with ‘Of all clean birds ye may eat’ (Leviticus 11:11), but does not give a list like that of clean beasts. The forbidden birds are almost identical in both. (d) Winged swarming things Leviticus 11:20-23. Cp. Deuteronomy 14:19-20 Lev. adds ‘that go upon all four’ (Leviticus 11:20), and in Leviticus 11:21-22 gives a list of winged swarming things that may be eaten (those that ‘leap’), repeating in Leviticus 11:23 the prohibition of Lev 11:20. Deut. concludes the list with ‘of all clean fowls (the same Heb. word as for ‘winged things’) ye may eat’ (Leviticus 14:20), but gives no list.

Parteth ... - Rather, is clovenfooted and completely separates the hoofs.

3. Whatsoever parteth the hoof — There is here no limit to the number of divisions, but in Deuteronomy 14:6 we find the words “cleft into two claws.” Thus also the Seventy in this verse.