Leviticus 11:20

Summary

Leviticus 11:20 declares that every small creature associated with flight (sheretz ha'of) that moves about on four legs is classified as sheqetz ("detestable thing") for the addressed group. The verse functions as a general classification rule opening a section on flying swarming creatures.

Key words

• sheretz ("swarming thing of", H8318) — masculine singular construct; forms a construct chain with the following noun, so it means "swarming-thing-of the flying-thing" rather than two separate nouns.
• ha'of ("the wing/flying thing", H5775) — the noun in the construct chain, bearing the definite article; it denotes what flies or has wings, functioning here as the class to which the sheretz belongs.
• ha-holekh ("the one walking", H1980G) — qal participle with prefixed definite article, used as a relative clause equivalent to "which walks"; it modifies ha'of, describing behavior rather than stating a completed or ongoing single action.
• 'arba' ("four", H0702) — cardinal number; the Hebrew text states only "four," with no explicit word for "legs" or "feet" present in the string of words given.
• sheqetz ("detestable thing", H8263) — masculine singular noun functioning as predicate nominative in the nominal clause "sheqetz hu lakhem" ("a detestable thing it [is] to you"), with no verb "to be" required in Hebrew.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a nominal (verbless) clause: the subject is the long construct-and-relative phrase kol sheretz ha'of ha-holekh 'al-arba' ("every swarming-thing-of-the-flying-thing that walks on four"), and the predicate is sheqetz hu lakhem ("a detestable-thing it [is] to you"). Hebrew does not need a copula verb here; the pronoun hu ("it", H1931) serves to link subject and predicate explicitly.

The phrase sheretz ha'of is a construct chain, meaning the first noun (sheretz) is grammatically bound to the second (ha'of), yielding something like "swarmer of the flying-kind." The participle ha-holekh ("the one walking"), with its attached article, functions as a relative clause attached to ha'of, describing an ongoing characteristic (habitual walking on four) rather than a single event. The word 'arba' ("four") appears alone in the Hebrew string provided, without an explicit noun for "legs/feet."

Differences between versions

The LXX opens with καὶ ("and"), a connective not present in the Hebrous string as given, and renders sheretz with ἑρπετὰ ("creeping things") applied to τῶν πετεινῶν ("of the birds/flying creatures"). The Vulgate makes explicit "pedes" ("feet") — "super quatuor pedes" ("upon four feet") — where the Hebrew word list shows only arba' ("four") without a stated noun for "feet" or "legs."