Leviticus 11:1
_Aaron. God shews him this honour after his consecration, though not always. See chap. xii. and xvii., &c. (Worthington)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Aaron. God shews him this honour after his consecration, though not always. See chap. xii. and xvii., &c. (Worthington)_... [ Continue Reading ]
Animals which you are to eat, &c. The prohibition of so many kinds of beasts, birds, and fishes, in the law, was ordered, 1. to exercise the people in obedience and temperance; 2. to restrain them from the vices of which these animals were symbols; 3. because the things here forbidden were for the m... [ Continue Reading ]
_Hoof divided, and cheweth the cud. The dividing the hoof, and chewing the cud, signify discretion between good and evil, and meditating on the law of God: and where either of these is wanting, a man is unclean. In like manner, fishes were reputed unclean that had not fins and scales: that is, souls... [ Continue Reading ]
_Camel, which hath a hard skin connecting its hoof below. The Arabs and Persians eat its flesh. God will have his people keep at a distance from imitating them; and that is one of the reasons for this and similar precepts. (Calmet)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_The cherogrillus. Some suppose it to be the rabbit, others the hedge-hog: St. Jerome intimates that it is another kind of animal common in Palestine, which lives in the holes of rocks, or in the earth. We choose here, as also in the names of several other creatures that follow, (which are little kn... [ Continue Reading ]
_Cheweth. Some copies of the Septuagint add not, which agrees with the nature of the hare; though the people to whom Moses addresses himself were of a different persuasion. Its hoof is not divided into two parts only, and therefore it is accounted unclean._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Swine. This animal was abhorred by many other nations. If an Egyptian happened to touch one, he plunged into the Nile. (Herod., ii. 47.) Few are to be seen in the East. Yet the people of Crete and of Samos held swine in veneration; and they were offered in sacrifice to Venus, by the Cyprians. They... [ Continue Reading ]
_Carcasses. They might be touched while alive, ver. 24._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Eat. The Egyptians, and the priests of the Syrian goddess, abstained from fish. --- Pools. Hebrew and Septuagint torrents. (Calmet) --- Eels are prohibited, &c. (Menochius)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Scales. Numa forbade fish without scales to be used in the sacred feasts. (Pliny, [Natural History?] xxxii. 2.)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_The griffon. Not the monster which the painters represent, which hath no being upon earth; but a bird of the eagle kind, larger than the common. (Challoner) --- Osprey. The sea or black eagle, which is very clear-sighted, and expert at catching fish. Pliny relates, (B. x. 3,) that it tries its youn... [ Continue Reading ]
_Ostrich; which was served up at the tables of the Persian kings. Hebrew, "the daughter of the hiena;" ( both eiane) or the swan, Isaias xiii. 21. --- Owl, or perhaps the male ostrich, which cruelly abandons its young. --- Larus, the water-hen. (Calmet) --- Some have the cuckow. (Haydock)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Owl, or the onocrotalus, which makes a hideous noise like an assibis, a bird adored in Egypt. Bochart takes the Hebrew to mean an owl, as well as the following term, swan, (Calmet) which is not probable._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Bittern, onocrotalum. See ver. 17. Protestant version has "pelican and the gier-eagle," for porphyrion. (Haydock) --- Its beak and long legs are red. (Pliny, [Natural History?] x. 46.) Bochart understands the vulture, and the Samaritan version the pelican; both of which are remarkable for the care... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER XI. _ Heron, or "stork," noted for the same quality: chasida, means "piety." --- Charadrion, a kind of heron, (Calmet) mentioned by Aristotle, viii. 3. It is found in deep holes and rocks. (Menochius) --- Some translate parrot, peacock, kite, &c. Anapha, may denote a bird easily vexed. (Cal... [ Continue Reading ]
_Feet. Such as bees, (Calmet) and other insects of which he speaks. (Menochius)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Walketh. Hebrew adds lo, "not." But the Massorets read lu, "to it," agreeably to the Vulgate. (Calmet) --- Protestant version, "Yet these may ye eat, of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth."_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Locust. The three former are species of the same kind. The bruchus is a young locust, without wings, (St. Augustine in Psal. civ.,) and the attachus the least of all. (Pliny, xxix. 5.) The ophiomachus is large, "encounters serpents," and is destitute of wings. The nations called Acridophagi, receiv... [ Continue Reading ]
_Only. Equal in length, ver. 20-21. (Menochius)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Evening. If he were guilty of sin in so doing, contrition would be necessary to regain God's favour. (Worthington) --- But the legal uncleanness would not be removed till the evening; as the one might subsist while the other was remitted. (Haydock)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Necessary. To prevent the obstruction of the road, or the infection of the air. (Menochius) --- When any person touched these carcasses, he was obliged to wash his clothes immediately, and still to refrain from touching any thing sacred till sun-set. (Estius) --- If a dog chanced to die in the hous... [ Continue Reading ]
_It. When dead. It was lawful to ride on a camel, but not to eat its flesh._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Hands. Like a monkey, frog, &c., the fore-feet of which rather resemble hands._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Weasel. Bochart understands the mole, in opposition to all the versions: choled, means indeed "to root up the earth." (Calmet)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Chameleon, feeds upon air, and assumes various colours. (Pliny, viii. 33.) It resembles a lizard, as does the stellio, Pliny, xxix. 4. --- Lizard. Protestant, "snail." (Haydock)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Broken. See chap. vi. 28, where a similar injunction is given. (Menochius) --- And (ver. 35,) ovens and pots, made of earthenware, according to Pollux are to be destroyed. (Tirinus)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Water, unclean, or in a polluted vessel._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Clean. They would be so difficult to purify, and water is so necessary._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Defiled, and given to the beasts. (Menochius)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Beast die a natural death, or be suffocated, or be slain by a wild beast. (Calmet)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Clothes, and his whole body, either together or separate, as the Rabbins explain the law. (Selden, syn. i. 3.) If any one eat or touch these things, on purpose, he was liable to a more severe punishment, (Menochius) and his soul was defiled by disobedience, ver. 43. (Calmet)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Abominable. Serpents, worms, and reptiles are proscribed. (Menochius)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Holy, and detest the uncleanness of the Gentiles, in their sacrifices and feasts. (St. Augustine, City of God vi. 7.)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_Your God. By these laws, the Jews were to be distinguished from other nations. (Haydock) --- They were also to be reminded, that God was very jealous of their interior sanctity, since he required so great a legal purity. Without the former, they might easily conclude that the latter would not pleas... [ Continue Reading ]