What Does Deuteronomy 14:14 Mean in the King James?

And every raven after his kind,

Deuteronomy 14:14 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The Hebrew phrase places the raven inside a ⁨מִין⁩ (mîn, kind or species), so the boundary covers a class of birds, not just one.

THE MEANING

The raven is named within the boundary around what is eaten, and that boundary extends to its kind. The verse marks a whole category, not merely a single bird.

THE ROOT

לְמִינוֹ

leminô

GROWS FROM

מין

kind, sort, species

⁨מִין⁩ (mîn, kind or species) makes the category itself carry the boundary: the line reaches beyond one raven to its whole kind. The suffix in ⁨לְמִינוֹ⁩ (leminô, according to its kind) refers back to the raven; “his” does not identify a male bird.

ALSO GROWS

mînîm: kinds, species

מִינִים

The plural form of the same noun shows how the category can group many creatures by kind.

leminah: according to its kind

לְמִינָהּ

This feminine form of the same phrase appears in the creation account; the kind remains the category even as the creature named changes.

THE PATTERN

The text preserves distinctions among living things by naming their kinds, so a boundary can extend across a category.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:21 · KJVThe same “after its kind” language places different living creatures within distinct categories.

Every raven after his kind;

Leviticus 11:15 · KJVThe raven’s kind again carries the dietary boundary beyond a single bird.

But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

1 Corinthians 15:38 · KJVThe distinction between kinds appears here as each seed receiving its own body.

THE THREAD

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:21 · KJV

Genesis uses the same ⁨מִין⁩ (mîn, kind or species) word to describe categories of living creatures. Here that category carries the boundary around the raven beyond an individual bird.

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