What Does Leviticus 11:22 Mean in the King James?

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.

Leviticus 11:22 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The verse turns a swarm into named kinds: permission is precise enough to distinguish what can be received.

THE MEANING

The verse meets you with permission that has edges: certain creatures may be received, and each is named by kind. Abundance does not flatten distinction; what may be received is discerned within it.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that this whole class is simply forbidden falls away: the verse names particular kinds that are permitted.

THE ROOT

אַרְבֶּה

ʾarbeh

GROWS FROM

רבה

⁨רָבָה⁩ (ravah): to increase, become many.

The word for locust is commonly connected to the root ⁨רבה⁩, “increase, become many.” The verse names particular kinds within that abundance, showing that a swarm is not treated as one indistinguishable mass.

ALSO GROWS

ravah: Increase, become many.

רָבָה

This verb shares the root associated with the locust’s name and makes its abundance audible.

hirbah: Increase or multiply.

הִרְבָּה

This causative form carries the same root’s sense of making numerous, linking the locust to multiplication.

THE PATTERN

Life is named by kind: what may be received or how it belongs is made legible through distinctions.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

Genesis 1:24 · KJVCreation is described through distinct kinds, the same language of differentiation repeated in the verse.

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

Deuteronomy 14:4 · KJVThe permission to eat is likewise made specific by naming the kinds that may be received.

But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

1 Corinthians 12:18 · KJVThe body is made whole through members placed distinctly, rather than through sameness.

THE THREAD

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

Genesis 1:22 · KJV

The Hebrew word ⁨אַרְבֶּה⁩ (ʾarbeh, locust) is commonly connected to ⁨רבה⁩ (ravah, increase or multiply), the root behind “multiply” here. That shared root carries the sense of abundant life into Leviticus, where particular kinds within that abundance are named as permitted.

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