Deuteronomy 14:19

And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:1-21 Moses tells the people of Israel how God had given them three distinguishing privileges, which were their honour, and figures of those spiritual blessings in heavenly things, with which God has in Christ blessed us. Here is election; The Lord hath chosen thee. He did not choose them because they were by their own acts a peculiar people to him above other nations, but he chose them that they might be so by his grace; and thus were believers chosen, Eph 1:4. Here is adoption; Ye are the children of the Lord your God; not because God needed children, but because they were orphans, and needed a father. Every spiritual Israelite is indeed a child of God, a partaker of his nature and favour. Here is sanctification; Thou art a holy people. God's people are required to be holy, and if they are holy, they are indebted to the grace God which makes them so. Those whom God chooses to be his children, he will form to be a holy people, and zealous of good works. They must be careful to avoid every thing which might disgrace their profession, in the sight of those who watch for their halting. Our heavenly Father forbids nothing but for our welfare. Do thyself no harm; do not ruin thy health, thy reputation, thy domestic comforts, thy peace of mind. Especially do not murder thy soul. Do not be the vile slave of thy appetites and passions. Do not render all around thee miserable, and thyself wretched; but aim at that which is most excellent and useful. The laws which regarded many sorts of flesh as unclean, were to keep them from mingling with their idolatrous neighbours. It is plain in the gospel, that these laws are now done away. But let us ask our own hearts, Are we of the children of the Lord our God? Are we separate from the ungodly world, in being set apart to God's glory, the purchase of Christ's blood? Are we subjects of the work of the Holy Ghost? Lord, teach us from these precepts how pure and holy all thy people ought to live!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The "pygarg" is a species of gazelle, and the "wild ox" and "chamois" are swift types of antelope.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. the lapwing—the upupa or hoop: a beautiful bird, but of the most unclean habits. [See on [138]Le 11:19].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean,.... Which the Targum of Jonathan thus paraphrases;"all flies and wasps (or hornets), and worms of lentiles and of beans, which are separated from food, and fly as birds, they are unclean;''See Gill on Leviticus 11:20; see Gill on Leviticus 11:21.

Geneva Study Bible

And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. all winged creeping things are unclean] Lit. swarming things that fly, all winged insects. To this Leviticus 11:21 f. adds that go upon all fours and excepts from the rule such as have jointed legs above their feet to leap on the earth, i.e. various kinds of leaping locusts, as distinguished from the running locust (see Shipley and Cook, art. ‘Locust’ in E.B.). They come under the clean insects of the next v.

Deuteronomy 14:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With reference to food, the Israelites were to eat nothing whatever that was abominable. In explanation of this prohibition, the laws of Leviticus 11 relating to clean and unclean animals are repeated in all essential points in vv. 4-20 (for the exposition, see at Leviticus 11); also in Deuteronomy 14:21 the prohibition against eating any animal that had fallen down dead (as in Exodus 32:30 and Leviticus 17:15), and against boiling a kid in its mother's milk (as in Exodus 23:19).