Deuteronomy 14:16

Summary

This verse continues a list of birds forbidden as food in Deuteronomy 14, naming three specific types: ha-Kos ("the little owl", H3563B), ha-yanshuf ("the great owl", H3244), and ha-tinshamet ("the barn owl", H8580). No verb appears in this verse; it is a bare list of nouns extending the syntax of the preceding verses.

Key words

• Kos ("little owl", H3563B) — masculine singular noun, marked with the definite article ha- ("the") and preceded by the object marker 'et (H0853), signaling it as one of the items governed by an earlier verb (likely "you shall not eat," found in a prior verse).
• yanshuf ("great owl", H3244) — masculine singular noun, also definite and marked with 'et, structurally parallel to Kos.
• tinshamet ("barn owl", H8580) — feminine singular noun, definite, but here introduced only by ve- ("and", H9002) without a repeated 'et marker.
• 'et (H0853) — the direct object marker, untranslatable in English/Spanish, appears twice (before Kos and before yanshuf) but is absent before tinshamet.
• ve- (H9002) — the conjunction "and," links all three items and, in the case of tinshamet, substitutes for the object-marker + article sequence seen with the first two nouns.

What the text says

The verse is syntactically a continuation of a list, with no independent verb of its own; it depends on the negated verb governing the whole catalogue of forbidden birds earlier in the chapter. Grammatically, the first two nouns, Kos and yanshuf, follow an identical pattern: object marker 'et + definite article ha- + noun. The third noun, tinshamet, breaks this pattern slightly — it is introduced by the conjunction ve- attached directly to the definite article, without a preceding 'et. This kind of shift in object-marker usage within a list is common in Biblical Hebrew and does not change the grammatical function of tinshamet as a third parallel object; it simply varies the list's rhythm within the sentence.

The nouns themselves are simple singular forms; two are grammatically masculine (Kos, yanshuf) and one is grammatically feminine (tinshamet). This is a feature of Hebrew noun gender and does not correspond to the biological sex of the birds referenced.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew list (little owl, great owl, barn owl) diverges substantially from both the Septuagint and the Vulgate in terms of which birds are named. The LXX text given renders items such as καταράκτην ("cormorant" or diving-bird), ἱέρακα ("hawk"), ὔποπα ("hoopoe"), and νυκτικόρακα ("night raven"), which do not correspond one-to-one with the three Hebrew terms in this verse. The Vulgate lists herodium ("heron"), cygnum ("swan"), and ibin ("ibis"), again differing from the Hebrew bird names. Modern translations (BSB, SBLIBRE) render the Hebrew terms as owls of varying types, aligning more closely with the Hebrew consonantal text than the LXX or Vulgate do.