What Does Leviticus 11:21 Mean in the King James?
Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
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 verse keeps the flyer inside the swarming category, then draws the edible line at its ability to leap.
THE MEANING
This verse names a specific permission within the broad class of winged swarmers: the creature has legs above its feet for leaping on the earth. Its form and movement mark the distinction; the broad category alone does not settle what may be eaten.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that every flying creeping thing falls under the same restriction: this verse names an edible subset.
THE ROOT
שֶׁרֶץ
sherets
GROWS FROM
שׁרץ
to swarm, teem
“creeping thing” in this verse is sherets. The Hebrew keeps this creature within the swarming category even while it flies. The verse narrows that broad category by the creature’s capacity to leap.
ALSO GROWS
sherets: swarming or moving creature
שֶׁרֶץ
This is the category rendered “creeping thing” here, showing that the English phrase includes a winged creature.
sharats: to swarm, teem
שָׁרַץ
In Genesis 1:20, the waters “bring forth abundantly”; the same root presents living movement as teeming life.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names creatures through their kind and movement, then speaks concretely about how they are encountered.
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;THE THREAD
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.Both verses use sherets (שֶׁרֶץ, sherets, “swarming creature”): Genesis renders it “moving creature,” while Leviticus renders it “creeping thing.” The shared root places the winged creature within the language of teeming life before Leviticus distinguishes it by its leaping limbs.
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