Deuteronomy 14:20

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Of all clean birds you may eat.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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ע֥וֹף

ʻôwph

H5775

“bird”

Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 71× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 1:20

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H5774

TWOT: 1582a

flying creatures, fowl, insects, birds - fowl, birds - winged insects

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

4: words
4: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

1 verb
2 nouns
1 adjective

Verb forms

תֹּאכֵֽלוּ Qal · Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 7 words from the Hebrew and 6 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 4 Hebrew tokens and 4 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Deuteronomy 14:20 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

כָּל ע֥וֹף טָה֖וֹר תֹּאכֵֽלוּ

Of all clean birds you may eat.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 14:20 Septuagint · lemma form

πᾶς πετεινόν καθαρός ἐσθίω

You⌃ shall eat every clean bird.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

כָּל עוֹפָא דְכֵי תֵּיכְלוּן

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

כָּל גּוּבָא דַכְיָא תֵּיכְלוּן

but any clean beast {locust} you may eat.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Deuteronomy 14:20 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

20. Of all clean winged things ye may eat] R.V. fowl is misleading; the term winged covers both birds and flying insects and here probably refers only to the latter. Arabs and other eastern peoples eat locusts not only in time of famine; fried or made into cakes they are considered a delicacy (Burton, Pilgrimage, etc., ii. 117; Doughty, i. 472, ii. 245 f., 323; Musil, Ethn. Ber. 151).

Nothing is said of reptiles (frogs may be supposed to fall under the class of unclean fishes, Deu_14:10). Lev_11:29 ff. counts as unclean, the weasel, mouse, lizards, chameleon and Lev_11:41 serpents. Arabs eat lizards, ‘very sweet meat,’ though some abhor them as serpents (Doughty, i. 70, 326, ii. 533: cp. for ancient Arabia, G. Jacob, 24, 95); and even one species of serpent is eaten (Musil, Ethn. Ber. 151). And mice are eaten both by some Arabs and in N. Syria (Tristram).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there,.... See Deu 12:5 there the tithe of all the fruits of the earth was to be eaten; this is the second tithe, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so Jarchi, and which is more particularly described as follows:

the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil: see Deu 12:7,

and the firstlings of thine herds, and of thy flocks; of which see the note on the above place:

that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always; which such a constant practice would inure unto; see Deu 10:12.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

כל עוף תאכלו ALL CLEAN FOWLS, YOU MAY EAT — but not (as is implied by these words) the unclean. Scripture intends, by this statement, to attach to the negative command which forbids unclean fowls (v. 12), a positive one which implicitly contains a prohibition. And similarly, when in the case of clean cattle it states, (v. 6) “that you may eat”, it implies: not, however, the unclean ones. Now a prohibition which is not plainly expressed but can only be drawn by inference from a positive command, is itself regarded only as a positive command, so that one who eats such food transgresses thereby not two negative commands, but a positive and a negative command (Sifrei Devarim 101:10; and cf. Rashi on Leviticus 11:3).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Deuteronomy, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 4 words (4 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʻôwph (“bird”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word ʻôwph carries the sense “bird.” How does it shape the verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «תֹּאכֵֽלוּ» is Qal Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges and John Gill's Exposition read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 4 Hebrew ↔ 4 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 5 words in this verse.
4 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 4 words in this verse.