Deuteronomy 14:5
אַיָּל וּצְבִי וְיַחְמוּר וְאַקּוֹ וְדִישֹׁן וּתְאוֹ וָזָֽמֶר׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
אַיָּ֥ל וּצְבִ֖י וְיַחְמ֑וּר וְאַקּ֥וֹ וְדִישֹׁ֖ן וּתְא֥וֹ וָזָֽמֶר׃
ἔλαφον καὶ δορκάδα καὶ πύγαργον, ὄρυγα καὶ καμηλοπάρδαλιν·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
cervum et capream, bubalum, tragelaphum, pygargum, orygem, camelopardalum.
el venado, la gacela, el corzo, la cabra montés, el íbice, el antílope y la gamuza.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
El ciervo, el corzo, y el búfalo, y el cabrío salvaje, y el unicornio, y buey salvaje, y cabra montés.
the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Deuteronomy 14:5 continues a list of clean wild animals permitted for consumption, naming seven species of ungulates: deer, gazelle, roe-deer, wild goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep. The verse consists solely of a coordinated string of nouns without verbs, continuing the syntax established in the preceding verse.
Key words
- 'ai.Yal ("a deer", H0354) — masculine singular noun, first item in the list, functioning as the head of the enumeration.
- tze.Vi ("a gazelle", H6643B) — masculine singular noun joined to the first term by the conjunction u ("and", H9002).
- yach.Mur ("a roe-deer", H3180) — masculine singular noun, third item, also joined by ve ("and", H9002).
- 'a.Ko ("a wild goat", H0689) — masculine singular noun, a rarer term appearing only in this list-type context.
- di.Shon ("an ibex", H1788) — masculine singular noun, another term whose precise zoological referent is uncertain outside this list.
What the text says
The verse is grammatically simple: seven masculine singular nouns joined in sequence by the conjunction ve/u ("and", H9002), which appears six times, once before each noun except the first. There is no verb in the verse itself; it depends syntactically on the preceding material in Deuteronomy 14:4, which introduces the list of animals that may be eaten. The construction is a pure enumeration, a common feature of Hebrew legal and classificatory lists, where items are simply strung together with the conjunction rather than organized by subordinate clauses or descriptive phrases.
Several of the Hebrew terms — such as 'a.Ko (H0689), di.Shon (H1788), te.'O (H8377), and Za.mer (H2169) — are rare words, occurring few times in the Hebrew Bible, and their exact zoological identification is uncertain from internal Hebrew evidence alone. The glosses provided ("wild goat," "ibex," "antelope," "mountain sheep") represent conventional renderings rather than certainties, since these animal names are not otherwise defined within the text.
Differences between versions
The Septuagint (LXX) lists five terms — elaphon ("deer"), dorkada ("gazelle"), pygargon, oryga, and kamelopardalin ("giraffe-like animal") — fewer than the seven nouns in the Hebrew, suggesting either a condensation or a different correspondence of terms to species. The Vulgate offers six terms (cervum, capream, bubalum, tragelaphum, pygargum, orygem, camelopardalum — actually seven forms, but bubalum and tragelaphum may reflect a different splitting of the Hebrew terms). The Vulgate's camelopardalum ("giraffe") for the final Hebrew term Za.mer diverges notably from the modern gloss "mountain sheep," illustrating how the ancient versions understood these rare animal names differently than contemporary translations such as the RV1909 ("cabra montés") or BSB ("mountain sheep").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.