Leviticus 11:14 — Word Study
WLCוְאֶת־ הַ֨דָּאָ֔ה וְאֶת־ הָאַיָּ֖ה לְמִינָֽהּ׃
BSAthe kitedâʼâh△ [a fast-flying bird of prey, like a vulture] any kindmîyn of falconʼayâh [swift and powerful, a hawk-like bird]
| Greek | English | Parsing |
|---|---|---|
| וְאֶת־ | and the object marker | Conjunction, particle |
| הַ֨דָּאָ֔ה | the black kite | Particle, noun common feminine singular absolute |
| וְאֶת־ | and the object marker | Conjunction, particle |
| הָאַיָּ֖ה | the hawk | Particle, noun common feminine singular absolute |
| לְמִינָֽהּ׃ | to kind its | Preposition, noun common masculine singular construct, suffix |
Every word in the verse. Click a row to open it in the panel on the left.
| BSB | the kite, any kind of falcon, |
| KJV | And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; |
| ASV | and the kite, and the falcon after its kind, |
| YLT | and the vulture, and the kite after its kind, |
| WEB | the red kite, any kind of black kite, |
| BBE | And the kite and the falcon, and birds of that sort; |
Where they part company is in the rendering of הָאַיָּ֖ה — see How Translations Differ.
The verse is straightforward, identifying two specific birds as unclean.
7 commentators on this verse
Gill, Jamieson, Trapp, Ellicott & more — read them ›
clause
The sentence as the grammar sees it Open the tree ›
1 of 5 occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament — a word chosen on purpose.
Bars are logarithmic — אֵת, the commonest word in the Hebrew Bible, stands about 11,000 times, so a linear scale would leave everything else invisible. Click a row to open that word.
Deep Study — Leviticus 11:14
Sections marked generated are written from the data on this page rather than by a named author. Everything else — the lexicon entries, the cross references, the manuscript readings, the counts — is quoted from its source unchanged.
Context — Dietary Laws in Leviticusgenerated
Leviticus 11:14 is part of a larger section that outlines the animals and birds that the Israelites are permitted to eat. This verse specifically identifies the kite and various types of falcons as unclean birds. The context emphasizes the importance of dietary regulations for the community's holiness and separation from other nations.
Cross References
The Key Word — דָּאָה, ha.da.'Ahgenerated
The Hebrew word דָּאָה (da'ah) refers to a fast-flying bird of prey, often identified as a kite. It is derived from a root meaning to fly rapidly, indicating its swift nature. This word appears only once in the Bible, signifying a specific type of bird that is considered unclean.
The choice of this term highlights the characteristics of the kite as a bird of prey, which aligns with the dietary laws set forth in Leviticus. The swift movement of the kite is noted, which may symbolize its predatory nature.
How Translations Differ — measured against the Berean Standard Biblegenerated
This study reads the verse in the Berean Standard Bible, so the BSB is the wording every comparison below is made against.
Sentence Structuregenerated
The main clause of the verse lists the unclean birds, with the finite verb implied in the context of the dietary laws. The structure emphasizes the categorization of these birds as unclean.
The phrase וְאֶת־ הַ֨דָּאָ֔ה introduces the kite, followed by וְאֶת־ הָאַיָּ֖ה for the falcon, and concludes with לְמִינָֽהּ, specifying the kind. The order of the words reflects the importance of each bird in the list.
Septuagint Backgroundgenerated
In the Septuagint, the Hebrew word דָּאָה is rendered as γύπα, which generally refers to a vulture. This choice may reflect a broader understanding of the bird's characteristics rather than a direct translation.
The term for falcon, הָאַיָּ֖ה, is translated as ἰκτῖνα, indicating a specific type of bird that aligns with the characteristics of a falcon or hawk.
In plain words — the whole versegenerated
Leviticus 11:14 lists the kite and any kind of falcon as birds that should not be eaten. These birds are considered unclean according to the dietary laws given to the Israelites.
Frequently Asked Questionsgenerated
It means that these birds are not permitted for consumption according to the dietary laws in Leviticus.
Birds of prey, like the kite and falcon, are often seen as unclean due to their predatory nature and diet.
This verse is part of a section that outlines various animals and birds that the Israelites are instructed to avoid for dietary purposes, emphasizing their separation as a holy people.
Yes, other birds such as the eagle and vulture are also listed as unclean in the surrounding verses.
Reflection Questionsgenerated
- What are some modern-day practices regarding dietary restrictions that reflect similar principles?
- How can understanding these dietary laws help us appreciate the cultural context of the Israelites?
- What significance do you think these classifications of animals and birds had for the ancient Israelites?
- How can we apply the principles of holiness and separation found in these laws to our lives today?
Commentators on this verse — 7 expositors, verse by verse
Each of these wrote on Leviticus 11:14 itself, not merely on the chapter around it.
John Gill1697–1771Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleAnd the vulture, and the kite after his kind. Perhaps it might be better if the version was inverted, and the words be read, "and the kite, and the vulture, after his kind"; and the last word is by
Read John Gill on Leviticus 11 →Robert Jamieson1802–1880Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's CommentaryAnd these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, These are they ... abomination among the fowls.
Read Robert Jamieson on Leviticus 11 →John Trapp1601–1669Trapp's Complete Commentary on the Old and New TestamentsLeviticus 11:14 And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;Ver. 14. And the vulture, and the kite.] That feed upon carrion and dead carcasses, and are emblems of greedy gripers and oppressors.
Read John Trapp on Leviticus 11 →Charles John Ellicott1819–1905Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) And the vulture.—Rather, the kite. Its name in the original (dââh), which literally denotes the swift, majestic and gliding flier, appropriately describes this bird, which sails with its expanded wings through the air, where it often pauses as if suspended, watching for its prey. Kites are very plentiful in Syria, and are frequently seen hovering over the plains, the villages, and the outskirts of towns, and looking out for garbage and offal, and hence are often seen in company with the vulture at their useful task of devouring the carrion. Their gregarious habits are referred to by Isaiah (Isaiah 34:15), where they are mentioned in company with other raptatores as suitable inhabitants…
Read Charles John Ellicott on Leviticus 11 →AdamClarkeAdam Clarke's Commentary on the BibleVerse 14. The vulture] דאה daah, from the root to fly, and therefore more probably the kite or glede, from its remarkable property of gliding or sailing with expanded wings through the air. The דאה daah is a different bird from the דיה daiyah, which signifies the vulture. See Bochart, vol. iii., col. 195. The kite] איה aiyah, thought by some to be the vulture, by others the merlin. Parkhurst thinks it has its name from the root אוה avah, to covet, because of its rapaciousness; some contend that the kite is meant. That it is a species of the hawk, most learned men allow. See Bochart, vol. iii., col. 192.
Read AdamClarke on Leviticus 11 →CambridgeThe Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges14. the kite] vulture A.V. The Heb. word dβ’βh occurs only here as the name of a bird, but a similar word dayyβh is found in Deuteronomy 14:13 and Isaiah 34:15 (kite[s] R.V., vulture[s] A.V.) only. The Heb. words in Lev. and Deut. are Lev. dβ’βh (kite) ’ayyah (falcon), Deut. rβ’βh (glede) ’ayyah (falcon) dayyah (kite). rβ’βh is doubtless a copyist’s error for dβ’βh (it has been translated in R.V. and A.V. ‘glede,’ an old English word for ‘kite’), and dayyah may have been added instead of the omitted dβ’βh. the falcon] kite A.V. The word occurs here, in Deuteronomy 14:13 and Job 28:7 (vulture A.V.) only. The expression ‘after his kind’ following, implies that several varieties of this bird…
Read Cambridge on Leviticus 11 →Daniel Denison Whedon1808–1885Whedon's Commentary on the Bible14. The vulture — The Hebrew dayyah is found only here. Since the parallel word in Deuteronomy 14:13 is rayyah, milvius in the Vulgate, some Hebraists regard this as the black kite, but we are
Read Daniel Denison Whedon on Leviticus 11 →The verse in English, compared — 17 translations, and where they part company
Every translation on this page is a decision someone had to make and commit to. Read down a column and you see one translator's judgement; read across a row and you see the range the Greek actually allows. The BSB is the wording the rest of this page is measured against, so it is listed first.
Modern formal
the kite, any kind of falcon,
the red kite, any kind of black kite,
the kite, any kind of falcon,
the kite, the buzzard of any kind,
Tyndale line
And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;
and the kite, and the falcon after its kind,
and the kite, and the falcon after its kind;
And the vultur, and the kite after his kind;
Also the vultur, and the kite after his kinde,
Strictly literal
and the falcon, and the kite, after its kind;
and the vulture, and the kite after its kind,
and the kite, and the falcon after its kind,
And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;
the kite, any kind of falcon,
From the Latin
And the kite, and the vulture, according to their kind,
Simplified
buzzard, kite and similar birds of prey,
And the kite and the falcon, and birds of that sort;
Counted from the translations carried on this site, not from a survey of every English Bible. A rendering shared by many versions is usually inherited rather than independently arrived at — the Tyndale line in particular runs through most of them.
The sentence as the grammar sees it — from the MACULA Hebrew treebank
This is not our own analysis: it is the scholarly syntax tree for the verse, showing how the clause actually holds together.
Boxes are the grammarian's groupings — clause, noun phrase, prepositional phrase.
The four witnesses to this verse — Masoretic, Septuagint, Samaritan, Qumran
The Masoretic Text is supported by the Samaritan Pentateuch, which agrees word for word. The Dead Sea Scrolls show no variation in this verse, as the words are supplied by an editor due to damage.
וְאֶת־ הַ֨דָּאָ֔ה וְאֶת־ הָאַיָּ֖ה לְמִינָֽהּ׃
4 of the 5 words are matched. This is the word-by-word correspondence, not the Septuagint's own sentence — its word order and its articles are its own.
ואת הדאה ואת האיה למינה
Agrees with the Masoretic Text here, word for word.
[ואת] [הדאה] [ואת] [האיה] [למינ׳ה]
nothing on the leather here — 5 supplied entire by an editor.
Four traditions, not one. “On the leather” means the letters physically survive on the scroll, as against letters an editor has supplied to fill a hole in it — a restoration is a scholar’s reading, not a reading of the manuscript. Words in [square brackets] are supplied; the notes count them apart from what survives.
The map of this verse — what each word keeps company with
This is a map of two things, both counted rather than judged. Company kept: which words stand within three words of each of these, anywhere in the Hebrew Bible — the thicker the line, the more often the pair meet compared with chance. Built from: the words a word is made out of, taken from its own Strong’s entry. It is not a map of meaning: nothing here claims two words mean the same thing. Click any circle to see the numbers behind it.
Lexicons — every word in Leviticus 11:14
One dossier per word, with every reference work grouped by kind — Hebrew lexicons, morphology, Bible dictionaries, topical chains and the English of the translators themselves. The verse sits at the head of each block with the word under study lit, so you never lose your place. The panel above gives the short answer; this is the long one, and it is the part of the page worth indexing.
Every entry below is the lexicographer's own text. On the Hebrew: Brown-Driver-Briggs entire and its gloss set, Strong's Hebrew Dictionary, and Tyndale House's Translators Brief lexicon. Where a cell says a work has no entry, that work genuinely has none for this word.
אֵת (eth) is primarily a grammatical marker in Hebrew, indicating the definite direct object of a verb. It is not translated into English and typically precedes nouns that are definite. The word is derived from a demonstrative sense of entity, related to the Hebrew word for 'self.' Its Aramaic equivalent is יָת (yat).
אֵת the mark of the accusative, prefixed as a rule only to nouns that are definite
base
H853 אֵת the mark of the accusative, prefixed as a rule only to nouns that are definite
853 'eth ayth
apparent contracted from 226 in the demonstrative sense of
entity; properly, self (but generally used to point out more
definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or
namely):--(as such unrepresented in English).
see HEBREW for 0226
אֵת (et) — [Obj.].
sign of the definite direct object, not translated in English but generally preceding and indicating the accusative
Aramaic equivalent: yat (יָת "whom" H3487)
HC/To — Conjunction · particleHC/To
דָּאָה (da'ah) refers to a bird of prey, specifically identified as a kite in some contexts. The word is derived from a root meaning to fly rapidly, indicating its swift nature. It appears in discussions about birds of prey, though the exact identification may vary.
דָּאָה n.f. a bird of prey, possibly kite
base
H1676 דָּאָה
1676 da'ah daw-aw'
from 1675; the kite (from its rapid flight):--vulture. See
7201.
see HEBREW for 01675
see HEBREW for 07201
דָּאָה (da.ah) — kite.
fast-flying bird of prey (kite?), bird of prey
Art | N-fs — Particle · noun common feminine singular absoluteHTd/Ncfsa
kit ('ayyah; iktinos; Latin Milvus ictinus or regalis): A medium-sized member of the hawk tribe (see HAWK). This bird is 27 inches long, of bright reddish-brown color, has sharply pointed wings and deeply forked tail. It is supposed to have exceptionally piercing eyes. It takes moles, mice, young game birds, snakes and frogs, as well as carrion for food. Its head and facial expression are unusually eagle-like. It was common over Palestine in winter, but bred in the hills of Galilee and rough mountainous places, so it was less conspicuous in summer. It is among the lists of abominations (see Le 11:14 and De 14:13). It is notable that this is the real bird intended by Job to be used as that whose eye could not trace the path to the silver mine:
"That path no bird of prey knoweth,
Kite
An unclean and keen-sighted bird of prey (Lev. 11:14; Deut. 14:13). The Hebrew word used, ’ayet, is rendered “vulture” in Job 28:7 in Authorized Version, “falcon” in Revised Version. It is probably the red kite (Milvus regalis), a bird of piercing sight and of soaring habits found all over Palestine.
(Heb. ayyah), a rapacious and keen-sighted bird of prey belonging to the hawk family. The Hebrew word thus rendered occurs in three passages -- (Leviticus 11:14; 14:13; Job 28:7) In the two former it is translated "kite" in the Authorized Version, in the latter "vulture." It is enumerated among the twenty names of birds mentioned in (14:1) ... which were considered unclean by the Mosaic law and forbidden to be used as food by the Israelites.
A bird of prey, and therefore placed by Moses among the unclean birds, Le 11:14. See BIRDS.
אֵת (eth) is primarily a grammatical marker in Hebrew, indicating the definite direct object of a verb. It is not translated into English and typically precedes nouns that are definite. The word is derived from a demonstrative sense of entity, related to the Hebrew word for 'self.' Its Aramaic equivalent is יָת (yat).
אֵת the mark of the accusative, prefixed as a rule only to nouns that are definite
base
H853 אֵת the mark of the accusative, prefixed as a rule only to nouns that are definite
853 'eth ayth
apparent contracted from 226 in the demonstrative sense of
entity; properly, self (but generally used to point out more
definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or
namely):--(as such unrepresented in English).
see HEBREW for 0226
אֵת (et) — [Obj.].
sign of the definite direct object, not translated in English but generally preceding and indicating the accusative
Aramaic equivalent: yat (יָת "whom" H3487)
HC/To — Conjunction · particleHC/To
אַיָּה (ayah) refers to a type of bird, specifically a hawk, falcon, or kite. The entries suggest it may be related to another Hebrew word, אָיָּה (ayah), which means 'screamer.' The word appears in contexts discussing birds of prey.
אַיָּה n.f. hawk, falcon, kite
base
H344 אַיָּה hawk, falcon, kite
344 'ayah ah-yaw'
perhaps from 337; the screamer, i.e. a hawk:--kite, vulture.
see HEBREW for 0337
אַיָּה (ay.yah) — falcon.
hawk, falcon, kite
Art | N-fs — Particle · noun common feminine singular absoluteHTd/Ncfsa
hok (nets; hierax, and glaux; Latin Accipiter nisus): A bird of prey of the genus accipiter. Large hawks were numerous in Palestine. The largest were 2 ft. long, have flat heads, hooked beaks, strong talons and eyes appearing the keenest and most comprehensive of any bird. They can sail the length or breadth of the Holy Land many times a day. It is a fact worth knowing that mist and clouds interfere with the vision of birds and they hide, and hungry and silent wait for fair weather, so you will see them sailing and soaring on clear days only. These large hawks and the glede are of eagle-like nature, nesting on Carmel and on the hills of Galilee, in large trees and on mountain crags. They flock near Beersheba, and live in untold numbers in the wilderness of the Dead Sea. They build a crude nest of sticks and twigs and carry most of the food alive to their young. Of course they were among…
Hawk
(Heb. netz, a word expressive of strong and rapid flight, and hence appropriate to the hawk). It is an unclean bird (Lev. 11:16; Deut. 14:15). It is common in Syria and surrounding countries. The Hebrew word includes various species of Falconidae, with special reference perhaps to the kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), the hobby (Hypotriorchis subbuteo), and the lesser kestrel (Tin, Cenchris). The kestrel remains all the year in Palestine, but some ten or twelve other species are all migrants from the south. Of those summer visitors to Palestine special mention may be made of the Falco sacer and the Falco lanarius. (See NIGHT-HAWK.)
(Leviticus 11:16; 14:15; Job 39:26) The hawk includes various species of the Falconidae . With respect to the passage in Job (l.c.) which appears to allude to the migratory habits of hawks, it is curious to observe that of the ten or twelve lesser raptors (hawk tribe) of Palestine, nearly all are summer migrants. The kestrel remains all the year, but the others are all migrants from the south.
מִין (miyn) means 'kind' or 'species,' primarily referring to types or categories, often in relation to animals. It is derived from a root meaning to portion out. The term is consistently used across lexicons without significant disagreement.
[מִין] n.[m.] kind, species
base
H4327 מִין kind, species
4327 miyn meen
from an unused root meaning to portion out; a sort, i.e.
species:--kind. Compare 4480.
see HEBREW for 04480
מִין (min) — kind.
kind, sometimes a species (usually of animals)
Prep | N-ms | Suff — Preposition · noun common masculine singular construct · suffixHR/Ncmsc/Sp3fs