What Does Leviticus 11:4 Mean?
Yet these you may not eat, of those that bring up the cud or split the hoof. The camel brings up the cud but does not split the hoof, so it is unclean to you.
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
Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.THE KEY
The camel shows one sign but lacks the other: fitting the category depends on the whole pattern, not a single resemblance.
THE MEANING
This verse draws a boundary around what you receive as food: the camel brings the cud back up, yet it lacks the divided hoof. The word “unclean” marks its status within that boundary, “unto you.”
THE ROOT
מַעֲלַת גֵּרָה
maʿălat gērāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
Rise, go up, bring up
“bring up the cud” in this verse is maʿălat gērāh. The Hebrew phrase for chewing cud literally pictures bringing it up again. The same root forms עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, burnt offering, what rises), so the camel’s defining sign is an upward return; by itself, that sign does not complete the category.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: Rise or go up
עָלָה
This is the root action behind the verse’s phrase for bringing the cud up.
ʿōlāh: Burnt offering; literally, what rises
עֹלָה
The shared root links the cud’s upward return with an offering that rises.
ʿaliyyāh: Ascent; upper chamber
עֲלִיָּה
This branch also carries the root’s movement upward.
THE PATTERN
A category is defined by its full set of identifying traits, so one matching feature does not complete it.
Whatever splits the hoof and is cleft through, and brings up the cud among the beasts, that you may eat.And every beast that splits the hoof and is cleft through in two, and brings up the cud among the beasts, you shall eat.He who walks whole, works alignment, and speaks truth in his heart.THE THREAD
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.“Burnt offerings” translates עֹלָה (ʿōlāh), from the same root עלה (ʿ-l-h, rise or go up) as the phrase “bringing up the cud.” The shared root makes the camel’s upward-returning sign echo the offering that rises, while the verse’s boundary still depends on the whole pattern.
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