What Does Leviticus 11:18 Mean in the King James?
And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle,
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 bird called הָרָחָם (hā-rāḥām, the raḥam bird) shares the consonants ר־ח־ם (r-ḥ-m) with Hebrew words for compassion, even as the verse marks it as forbidden food.
THE MEANING
This line names three birds excluded from food. One name, הָרָחָם (hā-rāḥām, the raḥam bird), echoes the Hebrew root for compassion, though the bird-name’s derivation is uncertain; the verse leaves that resonance beside the boundary without explaining it.
THE ROOT
הָרָחָם
hā-rāḥām
GROWS FROM
רחם
r-ḥ-m
The root רחם (r-ḥ-m) means to show compassion. The related noun רֶחֶם (reḥem) means womb.
The KJV’s “gier eagle” translates הָרָחָם (hā-rāḥām, the raḥam bird), whose consonants match the root רחם (r-ḥ-m), associated with compassion and the womb. The bird-name’s exact derivation is uncertain, so this is a striking Hebrew resonance rather than a certain explanation of the name.
ALSO GROWS
raḥamim: Compassion, mercies
רַחֲמִים
This noun carries the root into the language of compassion, making the sound-link audible without proving the bird-name derives from it.
reḥem: Womb
רֶחֶם
This related noun shows the root’s range reaching into embodied life as well as compassionate care.
raḥum: Compassionate
רַחוּם
This adjective appears in Exodus 34:6 and provides a clear scriptural example of the compassion sense carried by the same root.
THE PATTERN
Clean and unclean boundaries become visible through named creatures and explicit limits, while their force rests in God’s distinction.
Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.Of all clean birds ye shall eat.And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.THE THREAD
And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,The Hebrew adjective רַחוּם (raḥum, compassionate) comes from the same consonantal root רחם (r-ḥ-m) that appears in the bird-name הָרָחָם (hā-rāḥām, the raḥam bird). That shared root lets the compassion resonance surface, while the bird-name’s uncertain derivation leaves the connection suggestive rather than certain.
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