Leviticus 11:16

Summary

This verse continues the list of birds forbidden as food in Leviticus 11, naming four species: the ostrich, the tachmas (a night bird, often rendered "screech owl"), the shachaf (a bird associated with the sea, often "gull"), and the netz ("falcon" or "hawk"), the last one specified as applying "according to its kind."

Key words

• bat ("daughter of", H1323G) — feminine singular construct noun; together with ya'anah it forms the phrase "daughter of the ostrich," a construct pair functioning as the name for this bird in Hebrew.
• ya'anah ("ostrich", H3284) — feminine singular noun, the second element of the construct phrase with bat.
• tachmas ("screech owl", H8464) — masculine singular noun, marked with the definite article and the direct object marker 'et (H0853), like the other three birds in the list.
• netz ("falcon", H5322B) — masculine singular noun; the only bird in this verse followed by the phrase le-minehu.
• minehu ("its kind", H4327 + H9023) — construct noun "kind of" plus third-person masculine singular suffix "his/its," attached with the preposition le ("to/according to") — literally "according to its kind."

What the text says

The verse is built as a simple chain of four objects, each introduced by the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) and joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). Each bird name carries the definite article ha (H9009), except for the first, where the article attaches instead to ya'anah within the construct phrase bat ha-ya'anah. This construct structure — "daughter of the ostrich" — is a common way in Biblical Hebrew of naming a species, though its literal component parts are not usually reflected in translation.

Grammatically, the phrase le-minehu ("according to its kind") is attached only to the final item in the list, netz ("falcon", H5322B). The construct noun mine ("kind of", H4327) with the suffix hu ("its", H9023) specifies that variations of this last-named bird are included under the same category, though the syntax does not explicitly state whether this classifying phrase extends back to cover all four birds in the list or applies narrowly to netz alone.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) renders four bird names — struthionem ("ostrich"), noctuam ("owl"), larum ("gull"), accipitrem ("hawk") — followed by juxta genus suum ("according to its own kind"), corresponding fairly closely to the Hebrew four-item list with the trailing kind-classifier. The LXX (Swete) text provided here shows only hierax ("hawk") kai ta homoia autō ("and the things similar to it"), which does not display the full four-name list found in the Hebrew and Vulgate; this reflects only a portion of the Greek rendering for this verse or a differing textual segmentation, not a direct one-to-one match with the Hebrew's four distinct bird names.