What Does Leviticus 11:6 Mean?
And the hare, which brings up the cud but does not split the hoof, 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
And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.THE KEY
The hare bears one sign of the clean animal and lacks the other, so the verse makes cleanness a complete pair rather than a single resemblance.
THE MEANING
The hare brings up cud, yet its hoof does not divide; under the verse’s stated measure, that one sign does not make it clean for you. Cleanness here rests on both marks together, so the missing division still matters.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A single matching trait is enough to meet the verse’s standard of cleanness.
THE ROOT
הִפְרִיסָה
hifrîsāh
GROWS FROM
פרס
To split or break apart; by extension, to divide out or distribute.
The Hebrew calls the hoof a parsah, then says it did not hifrisa: the hoof and its failure to split echo the same root. That root also describes breaking out bread to share, so “divideth” carries a connection between a split hoof and portions distributed.
ALSO GROWS
parsah: Hoof, especially a split hoof.
פַּרְסָה
The noun for the hoof echoes the verb for splitting it, tying the animal’s body and the required mark together.
paras: Break out or distribute; used of dealing bread to the hungry.
פָּרַס
The root’s sense of division also applies to bread portioned out, linking the hoof’s split with division into shares.
מַעֲלַת גֵּרָה
maʿălat gerah
GROWS FROM
עלה
To rise, go up, or bring up.
“brings up the cud” in this verse is maʿălat gerah. The Hebrew phrase describes bringing the cud up, the motion behind the English “cheweth the cud.” Its root also appears in words for rising, so the first sign is phrased as an upward return, paired with a hoof that does not divide.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: Rise or go up.
עָלָה
This verb gives the cud phrase its image of bringing something upward.
ʿolah: Burnt offering, traditionally understood as an offering that rises.
עֹלָה
The related word preserves the root’s upward motion, echoing the “bringing up” named in the animal’s first sign.
THE PATTERN
A category becomes clear through its paired distinctions: one matching trait cannot stand in for the other.
Whatever splits the hoof and is cleft through, and brings up the cud among the beasts, that you may eat.Nevertheless, these you shall not eat from among those that bring up the cud or split the hoof, such as the camel, the hare, and the coney, for they bring up the cud but do not split the hoof. Therefore they are unclean to you.And they shall teach my people to separate the set-apart from the common, and cause them to perceive between the unclean and the clean.THE THREAD
Is it not to break your bread for the hungry, and to bring the wandering poor into your house? When you see the naked, cover him, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh.The word behind “deal” is פָּרַס (paras), meaning to break out or distribute, the same root behind הִפְרִיסָה (hifrîsāh, “divideth”) here and the hoof noun פַּרְסָה (parsah). One verse uses the root for a hoof’s division; the other uses it for bread portioned out to the hungry.
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