What Does Leviticus 11:15 Mean?
Every raven after his kind,
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Every raven after his kind;THE KEY
“After his kind” marks the raven as a whole category of bird, not as an individual raven.
THE MEANING
This line names the raven as a kind among the birds barred as food. The boundary applies to the kind as a whole, not to one bird’s behavior.
THE ROOT
מִין
min
GROWS FROM
מ־י־ן
To portion out or sort into kinds; the etymology is uncertain.
The Hebrew phrase לְמִינוֹ (leminō) means “according to its kind.” The ending means “its,” so the line names a category of ravens rather than focusing on a male bird or an individual’s conduct.
ALSO GROWS
leminō: according to its kind
לְמִינוֹ
This is the phrase used in Leviticus 11:15; it makes the classification apply to the raven kind.
leminēhū: according to its kind
לְמִינֵהוּ
This related form recurs in creation’s descriptions of living creatures, linking the verse’s classification to a wider pattern of naming kinds.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names living forms by kind, treating their distinctions as part of how creation is recognized.
And God created the great sea serpents, and every living soul that creeps, which the waters swarmed with after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good.For every kind of beast, and of bird, and of creeping thing, and of what swims in the sea, is tamed, and has been tamed by humankind.But God gives it a body as he willed, and to each seed its own body.THE THREAD
He gives to the beast its bread, and to the young ravens that call out.The Hebrew word for “ravens,” עֹרֵב (ʿōrēḇ), appears in both verses. Leviticus names the raven kind within a food boundary; the psalm shows young ravens crying and receiving food, holding that boundary alongside the creature’s place in provision.
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