Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Leviticus 11:29
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Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
To these there are attached analogous instructions concerning defilement through contact with the smaller creeping animals (Sherez), which formed the fourth class of the animal kingdom; though the prohibition against eating these animals is not introduced till Lev 11:41, Lev 11:42, as none of these were usually eaten. Sherez, the swarm, refers to animals which swarm together in great numbers (see at Gen 1:21), and is synonymous with remes (cf. Gen 7:14 and Gen 7:21), "the creeping;" it denotes the smaller land animals which move without feet, or with feet that are hardly perceptible (see at Gen 1:24). Eight of the creeping animals are named, as defiling not only the men with whom they might come in contact, but any domestic utensils and food upon which they might fall; they were generally found in houses, therefore, or in the abodes of men. חלד is not the mole (according to Saad. Ar. Abys., etc.), although the Arabs still call this chuld, but the weasel (lxx, Onk., etc.), which is common in Syria and Palestine, and is frequently mentioned by the Talmudists in the feminine form חוּלדה, as an animal which caught birds (Mishn. Cholin iii. 4), which would run over the wave-loaves with a sherez in its mouth (Mishn. Tohor. iv. 2), and which could drink water out of a vessel (Mishn. Para ix. 3). עכבּר is the mouse (according to the ancient versions and the Talmud), and in Sa1 6:5 the field-mouse, the scourge of the fields, not the jerboa, as Knobel supposes; for this animal lives in holes in the ground, is very shy, and does not frequent houses as is assumed to be the case with the animals mentioned here. צב is a kind of lizard, but whether the thav or dsabb, a harmless yellow lizard of 18 inches in length, which is described by Seetzen, iii. pp. 436ff., also by Hasselquist under the name of lacerta Aegyptia, or the waral, as Knobel supposes, a large land lizard reaching as much as four feet in length, which is also met with in Palestine (Robinson, ii. 160) and is called el worran by Seetzen, cannot be determined. Lev 11:30 The early translators tell us nothing certain as to the three following names, and it is still undecided how they should be rendered. אנקה is translated μυγάλη by the lxx, i.e., shrew-mouse; but the oriental versions render it by various names for a lizard. Bochart supposes it to be a species of lizard with a sharp groaning voice, because אנק signifies to breathe deeply, or groan. Rosenmller refers it to the lacerta Gecko, which is common in Egypt, and utters a peculiar cry resembling the croaking of frogs, especially in the night. Leyrer imagines it to denote the whole family of monitores; and Knobel, the large and powerful river lizard, the water-waral of the Arabs, called lacerta Nilotica in Hasselquist, pp. 361ff., though he has failed to observe, that Moses could hardly have supposed it possible that an animal four feet long, resembling a crocodile, could drop down dead into either pots or dishes. כּוח is not the chameleon (lxx), for this is called tinshemeth, but the chardaun (Arab.), a lizard which is found in old walls in Natolia, Syria, and Palestine, lacerta stellio, or lacerta coslordilos (Hasselquist, pp. 351-2). Knobel supposes it to be the frog, because coach seems to point to the crying or croaking of frogs, to which the Arabs apply the termkuk, the Greeks κοάξ, the Romans coaxare. But this is very improbable, and the frog would be quite out of place in the midst of simple lizards. לטאה, according to the…
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