Deuteronomy 14:19

Summary

Deuteronomy 14:19 states that every sheretz ("swarming thing", H8318) associated with ha'of ("the flying creature/insect", H5775) is tame' ("unclean", H2931) for the addressees, and that these creatures are not to be eaten. The verse is part of a list of dietary restrictions and uses a verbless nominal clause followed by a passive verbal clause.

Key words

• sheretz ("swarming thing of", H8318) — masculine singular construct, forming a genitive chain with ha'of; denotes small creatures that move in swarms or clusters.
• ha'of ("the insect/flying creature", H5775) — definite noun completing the construct chain; the article marks it as a known category rather than a single unspecified creature.
• tame' ("unclean", H2931) — masculine singular adjective functioning as the predicate of a verbless clause.
• hu' ("it", H1931) — third-person pronoun acting as a copula, linking the subject (sheretz ha'of) to the predicate adjective tame'.
• yeakhelu ("they will be eaten", H398) — niphal (passive) imperfect, third-person masculine plural, expressing an ongoing or general prohibition rather than a single event.

What the text says

The verse opens with a construct chain, khol sheretz ha'of ("every swarming-thing of the flying-creature"), which groups a category of small winged creatures under one collective expression. This phrase functions as the subject of the sentence. Hebrew then forms a verbless clause — tame' hu' lakhem ("unclean it [is] to you") — where the pronoun hu' serves as a grammatical copula rather than an independent word for "he." This construction is typical of Biblical Hebrew nominal sentences, which do not require a verb "to be" in the present tense.

The second half of the verse shifts to a finite verb: lo' yeakhelu ("they will not be eaten"). The verb is in the niphal stem, which here carries passive force — the grammatical subject (the swarming creatures) receives the action rather than performing it. The imperfect aspect indicates a standing or repeated prohibition rather than a one-time event. Although the grammatical subject sheretz ha'of is singular in form, the verb appears in the plural, reflecting the collective/plural sense of the creatures denoted by sheretz.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew and the Vulgate agree in sense: both describe these creatures as unclean and prohibited from being eaten (Vulgate: immundum erit... non comedetur, "it will be unclean... it will not be eaten"). The LXX text supplied here diverges: it renders πᾶν πετεινὸν καθαρὸν φάγεσθε ("every clean bird you shall eat"), using "clean" (καθαρὸν) instead of "unclean" and an active permissive verb "you shall eat" (φάγεσθε) instead of a passive prohibition. This LXX wording contrasts directly with both the negative sense of the Hebrew clause and the Vulgate's rendering.