Deuteronomy 14:8

Summary

Deuteronomy 14:8 addresses the pig specifically, stating that although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud, and for that reason it is classified as unclean. The verse then prohibits both eating its meat and touching its carcass.

Key words

• chazir ("pig", H2386) — masculine singular noun, the animal named directly, marked by the object marker 'et (H0853) showing it is the topic under discussion, continuing a list from prior verses.
• mafris ("dividing", H6536) — hiphil participle construct of the root meaning to split; used descriptively of the hoof's condition, paired with parsah ("hoof", H6541).
• gerah ("cud", H1625) — feminine singular noun; its absence (ve-lo gerah, "and not cud") is the second criterion distinguishing clean from unclean animals.
• tame' ("unclean", H2931) — masculine singular adjective, the verdict pronounced on the animal, followed by hu' ("it", H1931) reinforcing the pronoun subject.
• tigga'u ("you will touch", H5060) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, expressing an ongoing prohibition against contact with the carcass, distinct from the verb of eating (to'khelu, H0398).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure isolates the pig as the subject through the construction ve-'et ha-chazir ("and the pig"), followed by a causal clause introduced by ki ("that/if", H3588A) explaining the classification criteria: mafris parsah hu' ("it is one dividing a hoof") and ve-lo gerah ("and not cud"). The participle mafris is in construct form with parsah, a common Hebrew way of expressing "one who does X of Y." The pronoun hu' appears twice (lines 8 and 13), each time anchoring the description to the animal as grammatical subject, first for the hoof-dividing trait, then for the unclean status itself (tame' hu' lakhem, "unclean it [is] to you").

The two prohibitions that follow use parallel structure: mi-besaram lo to'khelu ("from their meat you will not eat") and u-ve-nivlatam lo tigga'u ("and in their carcass you will not touch"). Both employ qal imperfect second-person plural verbs negated by lo (H3808), giving the force of an ongoing command applicable to the community (marked by the masculine plural pronominal suffixes -khem and -m). The prepositions min ("from/any of") and be ("in") introduce the respective objects, meat and carcass, each also bearing third-person plural suffixes referring back to the class of animals like the pig.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mafris parsah with two terms, διχηλεῖ ("cloven-footed") and ὀνυχιστῆρας ὁπλῆς ("claws/nails of the hoof"), expanding the single Hebrew participle-noun phrase into a more detailed description. The Vulgate uses dividat ungulam ("divides the hoof") and non ruminat ("does not ruminate"), where the Hebrew gerah ("cud") is rendered by a verb rather than a noun. The Hebrew text names the animal directly at the start (chazir), while the Vulgate's Sus quoque ("the pig also") and the LXX's τὸν ὗν preserve this direct naming, though the BSB and SBLIBRE integrate it differently into the sentence flow of the surrounding list.