Leviticus11:29

Translation

And this one

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shall be unclean to you in the entire class

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of swarming things that swarm

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on the earth – the animal that glides swiftly along,

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and the one that nibbles on things, and the one that is close to the ground and carries a canopy wherever it goes,

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after its kind,

Paraphrase

Add these to the list of animals that you should isolate yourselves from because they move along the ground in a large, wriggling mass – the animal that glides swiftly along (you know which one I’m talking about), and the one that nibbles on things (you know which one that is), and the one that is close to the ground and carries a canopy wherever it goes (you know what I mean), each one of these according to its kind,

Footnotes

1: “and this one”

I am convinced that the conjunction “and” in this case means “add to or added to.”

2

This is a combination of the preposition “in/among” and the noun “whole, entire, all.”

3

This word does indeed mean “to swarm” or to move about as a large mass of small, active creatures. It does not mean to creep. Because of this it probably refers to things like ants or any other small creature that lives in colonies. Here the stipulation that it moves along the ground rules out those that swarm and also fly through the air.

It appears that everything that moves along the ground in mass was obviously considered unclean. They were expected to know this without being told. The purpose of this verse is to add to that list other things that move close to the ground even though they don’t fit the category of those that move along the ground in large groups.

4

Its root meaning may be “something that glides swiftly along.” This word is often used to indicate how quickly our life passes by and is over; even the duration of the earth is seen as brief and gliding by quickly.

5

This word’s root meaning seems to be “carrier, something that carries something else, a canopy or something that is covered, a litter with a canopy.” It also may have referred to something that is “close to the ground.”