What Does Deuteronomy 14:4 Mean?

These are the beasts you shall eat. The ox, the sheep, and the goat.

Deuteronomy 14:4 · SDV

Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.

Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

These are the beasts which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat,

THE KEY

The Hebrew root for “eat” also names food and devouring, so the verse makes consumption concrete by naming exactly which animals may be eaten.

THE MEANING

The verse sets a boundary around food by naming the ox, sheep, and goat as what may be eaten. Its permission is concrete: the reader can see which creatures the sentence includes.

THE ROOT

תֹּאכֵלוּ

to'khelu

GROWS FROM

אכל

Eat, consume, devour

“eat” in this verse is to'khelu. The act of eating and the noun for food grow from the same root: eating is taking in something concrete. That root can also describe devouring; here the verse names the creatures that may be received as food.

ALSO GROWS

ma'akal: Food; something eaten

מַאֲכָל

The noun for food shares the root of the verse’s verb “eat,” linking the act to what is received.

okhelet: Devouring or consuming; used of fire

אֹכֶלֶת

The same root can describe consuming beyond ordinary eating, while this verse specifies which creatures may be eaten.

THE PATTERN

Scripture puts food in view by naming what can be eaten.

Every creeping thing that lives shall be food for you; as the green grass I have given you all.

Genesis 9:3 · SDVThe verse names living creatures and green plants as food.

Whatever splits the hoof and is cleft through, and brings up the cud among the beasts, that you may eat.

Leviticus 11:3 · SDVIt identifies the animal traits that mark what may be eaten.

And a voice came to him, Rise, Peter; slaughter, and eat.

Acts 10:13 · SDVThe command makes eating explicit and places what may be eaten at the center of the vision.

THE THREAD

And the LORD God commanded Adam, saying, From every tree of the garden you may freely eat.

Genesis 2:16 · SDV

Both verses use ⁨אכל⁩ (akal), meaning “eat.” Genesis names the garden’s provision broadly, while Deuteronomy names a specific set of animals; the shared root links the same act of eating to different objects and boundaries.

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