Leviticus 11:42

Lev 11:42 Whatsoever goeth upon the belly, and whatsoever goeth upon [all] four, or whatsoever hath more feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them ye shall not eat; for they [are] an abomination.

Ver. 42. {See Trapp on "Lev 11:41"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 42. Whatsoever goeth upon the belly] In the word גהון gahon, the vau holem, in most Hebrew Bibles, is much larger than the other letters; and a Masoretic note is added in the margin, which states that this is the middle letter of the law; and consequently this verse is the middle verse of the Pentateuch.

Whatsoever hath more feet] Than four; that is, all many-footed reptiles, as well as those which go upon the belly having no feet, such as serpents; besides the four-footed smaller animals mentioned above.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(42) Whatsoever goeth upon the belly.—In explanation of the general statement made in the preceding verse, three classes of creeping things are here adduced. (1) Those which move by the aid of the under part of the stomach, here described as “going upon the belly,” as serpents (see Gen_3:14) and serpentine worms.

And whatsoever goeth upon all four.—Those (2) which have four legs and yet move like reptiles, as scorpions, beetles, &c.

Or whatsoever hath more feet.—Better, whatsoever hath many feet, that is (3), those which have a number of such short feet that they cannot easily be discerned by the naked eye, and appear to crawl about upon their stomachs, as caterpillars, centipedes, millipedes, &c.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Whatsoever goeth upon the belly,.... Jarchi's paraphrase is, "whatsoever goeth", as worms and beetles, and the like to them, "upon the belly", this is the serpent; and to go upon the belly is the curse denounced upon it, Gen 3:14 this and every such creature are forbidden to be eaten; as there are others who either have no feet, or what they have so short, that they seem to go upon their belly; and yet, as horrible and detestable as the serpent is, it has been the food of some, and accounted very delicious, as by a people mentioned by the Arabic geographer (e). Mela (f) speaks of a people, who, from their eating serpents, were called Ophiophagi, serpent eaters; and Pliny (g) says of the Troglodytes, that the flesh of serpents was their food. The Spaniards, when they first found out the West Indies, going ashore on the isle of Cuba, found certain spits of wood lying at the fire, having fish on them, about one hundred pound weight, and two serpents of eight feet long, differing nothing from the crocodiles in Egypt, but not so big; there is nothing, says my author (h), among the delicate dishes (of the natives of that place), they esteem so much as these serpents, insomuch that it is no more lawful for the common people to eat of them, than of peacocks and pheasants among us; the Spaniards at first durst not venture to taste of them, because of their horrible deformity and loathsomeness; but the brother of Columbus being allured by a sister of one of the kings of the country to taste of them, found them very delicious, on which he and his men fell to, and ate freely of them, affirming them to be of more pleasant taste than either our pheasants or partridges; and that there is no meat to be compared with the eggs of these serpents (i). Diodorus Siculus (k) speaks of serpents in the island of Taprobane of great size, harmless to men, and whose flesh is eaten, and of a sweet savour:

and whatsoever goeth upon all four; that is, whatsoever creeping thing; for otherwise there are beasts that go upon all four that are clean and fit to eat; but this is observed to distinguish this sort of creeping things from those that go upon their belly, and from those that have more feet, as in the next clause; Jarchi particularly instances in the scorpion:

or whatsoever hath mere feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth; such as caterpillars, and particularly the Scolopendra, which the eastern people call Nedal; so Jarchi says, this is Nedal, a reptile which hath feet from its head to its tail, called Centipeda; and the Targum of Jonathan is, "from the serpent, to the Nedal or Scolopendra, which has many feet.'' Some of then, have seventy two, thirty six on a side, and others eighty four; some fewer, but all have many:

them ye shall not eat, for they are an abomination; abominable for food, and to be had in the utmost aversion. (e) Clim. 1. par. 6. (f) De Situ Orbis, l. 3. c. 8. (g) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 8. (h) Peter Martyr de Angleria, Decad. 1. l. 3. (i) Ib. l. 5. (k) Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 141.

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

Whatsoever goeth upon the belly - i. e. all footless reptiles, and mollusks, snakes of all kinds, snails, slugs, and worms. “Whatsoever goeth upon all four;” i. e. “creeping things,” or vermin; such as the weasel, the mouse or the lizard. Whatsoever hath more feet; i. e. all insects, except the locust family (Lev 11:22 note), myriapods, spiders, and caterpillars.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Abominable. Serpents, worms, and reptiles are proscribed. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Upon the belly, as worms and snakes.

Upon all four as toads and divers serpents.

More feet, to wit, more than four, as caterpillars, &c.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Upon the belly - As worms and snakes, Upon all four - As toads and divers serpents.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

‎גחון‎ הולך על THAT GOETH ON THE BELLY — This is the serpent (Sifra, Shemini, Chapter 12 2; Chullin 67b), and the expression גחון denotes bending low, so that the phrase means: that which walks bent down and fallen upon its belly.

כל הולך EVERYTHING THAT GOETH — The word “everything” is employed to include worms and whatever is similar to anything similar to it (Sifra, Shemini, Chapter 12 2).

הולך על ארבע THAT GOETH UPON ALL FOUR — This is the scorpion (Sifra, Shemini, Chapter 12 2).

כל EVERYTHING [THAT GOETH UPON ALL FOUR] — The word “everything” is intended to include the beetle, — escarbot in O. F. — and whatever is similar to anything similar to it (Sifra, Shemini, Chapter 12 2).

מרבה רגלים [AND] WHAT HATH MANY FEET — This is the centipede (Sifra, Shemini, Chapter 12 2) — an insect which has feet from its head to its tail on both sides of its body, and it is called centpies in old French

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.