What Does Leviticus 11:30 Mean in the King James?

And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole.

Leviticus 11:30 · 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 KJV names a ferret, but the Hebrew anaqah may preserve a sound-name from the root of groaning, turning a species label into an echo.

THE MEANING

This verse places five small creatures within the passage’s boundary for what is unclean to eat. Several Hebrew creature names do not map securely to the species named in English, so the boundary is clearer than some of the identifications.

THE ROOT

אֲנָקָה

ʾanaqah

GROWS FROM

אנק

To groan or moan; the animal name’s connection to this root is plausible but uncertain.

The KJV’s “ferret” translates anaqah, a creature name whose exact identification is uncertain. Its form may echo the Hebrew word for groaning, so a label for a small creature may carry the sound of a human cry as well.

ALSO GROWS

naʾaqah: Groaning

נַאֲקָה

This form names the sound associated with the root and makes the possible sound-based creature name visible.

naʾaqatam: Their groaning

נַאֲקָתָם

Exodus 2:24 uses this form for the people’s groaning, extending the same root from a creature name to a human cry.

THE PATTERN

Creature names mark boundaries around what may be eaten and what is treated as unclean.

These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind,

Leviticus 11:29 · KJVThe preceding verse places another list of named creeping creatures within the same unclean category.

Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you.

Deuteronomy 14:7 · KJVThe boundary appears again through distinctions between creatures that may and may not be eaten.

But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.

Acts 10:14 · KJVThe same food boundary is named through the category of what is called unclean.

THE THREAD

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

Exodus 2:24 · KJV

The Hebrew anaqah, rendered “ferret,” is often associated with ⁨אנק⁩, the root used for “their groaning” here. That possible sound-link is uncertain as animal etymology, but it reveals an echo the English species label hides.

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