Deuteronomy 22:9-11

Three Laws against Mixing (1) seeds, (2) animals in ploughing, (3) cloths in a garment. The first and third also in H, Leviticus 19:19 (cp. P, Leviticus 11:37, against defiling seed), along with one against cross-breeding; the second peculiar to D. The religious reason given for the first is to be inferred for the other two. To appreciate it we must keep in mind not only the attention of the mind of that time to the distinctness of species as created by God, Genesis 1:11 f., Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:24 f. (Driver), but the principle stated by Isaiah (Deuteronomy 28:24 f.) that all the husbandman's customs and methods including his discrimination and separation of different kinds of seed were taught him by divine revelation (cp. Leviticus 19:19: ye shall keep my statutes); and the possibility that in a more primitive society different seeds, animals and the stuffs produced from them were regarded as animated by different spirits whom it was unlucky to offend by confusing them (see on Deuteronomy 22:11). But it is remarkable that Ḫammurabi's Code shows no trace of this. For the later more detailed Jewish law see the Mishnah, -Kil'aim."