What Does Leviticus 11:16 Mean in the King James?

And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,

Leviticus 11:16 · 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 hawk is marked by its kind, linking this boundary to the language that names distinct kinds throughout creation.

THE MEANING

The verse sets a particular boundary around four named birds, including the hawk and its kind. Even within exclusion, the creature remains distinct: the line is drawn without making what lies beyond it a blur.

THE ROOT

מִין

min

GROWS FROM

מ־י־ן

m-y-n

Kind, species, or class.

The phrase here is ⁨לְמִינֵהוּ⁩ (leminéhu, according to its kind), built from ⁨מִין⁩ (min, kind or species). The same kind-language marks living creatures in the creation account, so this boundary attends to a named distinction rather than reducing the hawk to a generic bird.

ALSO GROWS

leminéhu: According to its kind.

לְמִינֵהוּ

This is the form used for the hawk in this verse; the boundary includes its kind.

leminah: According to her kind.

לְמִינָהּ

This feminine form uses the same kind-word, showing the distinction carried across different creatures.

minim: Kinds or species.

מִינִים

The plural gathers distinct kinds without collapsing them into one undifferentiated group.

THE PATTERN

A boundary can distinguish what is received while preserving the identity of each kind.

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 · KJVLiving creatures are named according to their kinds, the same distinction carried into the hawk’s classification here.

To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.

Leviticus 11:47 · KJVThe boundary is made legible through distinctions between what may be received and what may not.

There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.

1 Corinthians 14:10 · KJVEven among voices, distinct kinds remain meaningful rather than interchangeable.

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

Both verses use ⁨מִין⁩ (min, kind or species) in the phrase ⁨לְמִינֵהוּ⁩ (leminéhu, according to its kind). The creation verse shows the same distinction at work among living creatures; here, that kind-language marks the hawk within a boundary.

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