Leviticus 11:22

Summary

Leviticus 11:22 identifies four specific categories of winged swarming creatures permitted for consumption, each introduced by the direct object marker and closed with the recurring phrase "according to its kind." The verse names four insect types: 'arbeh (H0697), sal'am (H5556), chargol (H2728), and chagav (H2284).

Key words

• 'Elleh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle pointing back to criteria established in the preceding verses, introducing the list that follows.
• to.Khe.lu ("you will eat", H0398) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural; the imperfect aspect indicates an ongoing or repeated permitted action rather than a single event.
• mi.N / mi.Ne. ("kind", H4327) — construct noun repeated four times, each time bound to a third-person singular suffix (-o/-hu, "its"), forming the fixed formula le-mino / le-minehu ("according to its kind").
• 'ar.Beh ("locust", H0697) — masculine singular noun, the first named creature, marked with the definite article.
• char.Gol ("locust", H2728) — masculine singular noun, the third named creature in the series, also definite.

What the text says

The verse opens with 'et-'Elleh ("these"), a demonstrative that anaphorically refers to criteria given earlier in the chapter, followed by me-hem ("from them") and the verb tokhelu ("you will eat"), qal imperfect plural. This construction — demonstrative + partitive preposition + verb — frames the entire verse as a permission formula: from among the broader category of flying swarming creatures, these specific ones are eaten.

The body of the verse consists of four parallel units, each built identically: the direct object marker 'et, the definite article ha-, a singular masculine noun naming a creature, followed by le-mino or le-minehu ("according to its kind"). This repeated construct phrase min + pronominal suffix does not name a species precisely but rather designates a category or type associated with each named creature, allowing for internal variation within each named group. The suffix changes form (-o for 'arbeh, -hu for the remaining three) due to standard Hebrew phonological patterns with construct nouns, not due to any semantic distinction.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text names four creatures: 'arbeh, sal'am, chargol, and chagav. The LXX renders these as βροῦχος, ἀττάκης, ἀκρίς, and ὀφιομάχης — the third Greek term (ἀκρίς, "locust") corresponds to what Hebrew lists third position-wise as chargol, while the LXX's fourth term ὀφιομάχης ("snake-fighter") diverges notably from the Hebrew chagav, which most modern translations render simply as "grasshopper." The Vulgate follows an order matching bruchus, attacus, ophiomachus, locusta, reordering the Hebrew sequence and using ophiomachus (transliterated from Greek) for the fourth term rather than a plain Latin equivalent. Modern versions (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) render the four terms variously as "locust, katydid, cricket, grasshopper" or "langosta, langostín, aregol, haghab," reflecting the difficulty of identifying precise entomological equivalents for these Hebrew terms.