Leviticus 11 Summary and Study Guide

Fire went out from the LORD in Leviticus 10 and killed two of Aaron’s sons where they served. The next thing God says concerns which animals Israel may put on the table. This Leviticus 11 summary and study guide follows holiness out of the sanctuary and into the kitchen.

Setting the Stage

At Mount Sinai God told Israel to build Him a tent, and when it was finished His glory filled it so completely that Moses could not go in (Exodus 40:34-35). God had come to live among them, and the first nine chapters of Leviticus taught Israel how to come near Him.

Then two of Aaron’s sons offered fire God had never commanded, and fire from the LORD killed them both (Leviticus 10:1-2). The priests who survived were given one charge: “that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean” (Leviticus 10:10). They were to tell one kind of thing from another, and teach Israel to do the same. Leviticus 11 is where that charge starts being filled in.

Comprehensive Leviticus 11 Summary

God speaks to Moses and Aaron together, and the message is for all Israel. He starts with land animals and gives one rule in two parts: the animal must split the hoof, and it must chew the cud. Four animals then fail it.

The camel, the coney (the rock badger) and the hare chew the cud without the split hoof. The pig has the split hoof and never chews the cud. Israel may not eat any of them, and may not touch their dead bodies.

Water creatures need fins and scales. Everything else in the seas and the rivers is called an abomination, and God says so in three verses running. For birds He gives no rule at all. He names twenty and gives no reason for a single one. Flying insects are forbidden apart from the leaping kinds, and four of those are named.

At verse 24 the subject changes from eating to touching. A dead body makes a person unclean until sundown, and carrying one means washing the clothes as well. Household things become unclean too. Wood, cloth and leather are washed and clean again by evening, while a clay pot or an oven is broken instead, which many read as clay holding what water cannot reach. A spring stays clean, and so does dry sowing grain, though grain already wetted does not.

Verses 39 and 40 reach past the menu. Even a clean animal, one Israel was free to eat, defiles anyone who touches it once it has died on its own. Verse 43 turns from the animal to the person. Verses 44 and 45 state the ground of it all, and state it twice: God brought Israel up out of Egypt, and He is holy, so they must be holy. Verse 47 names the purpose in a single line.

One Word Summary

• Distinction: the word the chapter chooses for itself in verse 47
• Death: what actually defiles, in every case from verse 24 on
• Holiness: what God says He is, and what Israel must therefore be

In One Sentence

God tells Moses and Aaron to teach Israel which animals they may eat and which dead bodies will make them unclean, so that a people He brought out of Egypt would carry His holiness into an ordinary meal.

Theme of Leviticus 11

Leviticus 11 is about holiness that reaches the ordinary. God is holy, and He says so twice in this chapter, so the people He rescued had to look different in the plainest hours of the day. Two ideas run alongside that one.

The first is discernment, since God trains Israel to tell one thing from another, which is the same charge He had just laid on the priests. The second is death, because what makes a person unclean here is never the living creature but the dead one, and that keeps pressing the reader toward what every offering in Leviticus was answering.

Leviticus 11 Outline

• Leviticus 11:1-2: God speaks to Moses and Aaron and sends them to Israel with the law of what may be eaten.
• Leviticus 11:3: Israel may eat any land animal that both splits the hoof and chews the cud.
• Leviticus 11:4-8: The camel, coney, hare and swine each carry only one of the two marks, so Israel may neither eat them nor handle their dead bodies.
• Leviticus 11:9-12: Only water creatures with fins and scales may be eaten, and the rest are called an abomination.
• Leviticus 11:13-19: Twenty birds are named as forbidden, from the eagle to the bat.
• Leviticus 11:20-23: Flying insects are forbidden except the leaping kinds, and four of those are named as food.
• Leviticus 11:24-28: Touching the dead body of an unclean animal makes a person unclean until evening.
• Leviticus 11:29-31: Eight small creeping creatures are named, and their dead bodies defile anyone who touches them.
• Leviticus 11:32-35: Whatever a dead creature falls on becomes unclean, and a clay pot or oven is broken rather than washed.
• Leviticus 11:36-38: A spring or pit stays clean, and so does dry sowing grain, but grain already wetted does not.
• Leviticus 11:39-40: Even a clean animal that dies on its own defiles whoever touches, carries or eats it.
• Leviticus 11:41-43: Every creeping thing on the ground is forbidden as food, with a warning against becoming unclean by them.
• Leviticus 11:44-45: God states the ground of the law twice over, naming both His own holiness and the exodus out of Egypt.
• Leviticus 11:46-47: The chapter closes by stating its own purpose, to make a difference between the unclean and the clean.

The Creatures Leviticus 11 Names

The chapter’s form is a list, and the list is what a reader comes for. Thirty-six creatures are named across four groups in its forty-seven verses. God had already sorted animals this way long before Sinai, since Noah was told to take clean animals onto the ark by sevens (Genesis 7:2), and Noah’s household had been given every moving thing for food (Genesis 9:3). Leviticus 11 narrows that liberty for Israel alone.

Deuteronomy 14:4-5 fills in the other half of the land-animal list, naming the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hart, the roebuck, the fallow deer, the wild goat, the pygarg, the wild ox and the chamois as food.

Observations from Leviticus 11

The Chapter Names No Clean Land Animal (Leviticus 11:3-8)

God gives Israel a test and four examples of animals that fail it, and He never names one animal that passes. A family had to apply the rule themselves at the moment they were looking at the animal.

The split hoof and the cud are the marks God set, and they gave an ordinary household something it could check at a glance rather than a quality it had to judge. Verse 47 says the point plainly: God was training people to tell the difference, not handing them a shopping list.

God Gives a Rule to Some Groups and a Bare List to Others (Leviticus 11:3, 9, 13, 21)

Land animals get a rule with named exceptions. Water creatures get a rule with none. Birds get no rule at all, only twenty names. Insects get a ban with an opening left in it. The four groups also run across the spheres God filled in Genesis 1, the land and the waters and the air and the creatures that move along the ground, though Leviticus never draws the link itself.

Four groups, four ways of teaching, which is why a reader looking for one tidy principle comes away unsatisfied. Four ways of teaching form a habit of attention rather than hand Israel one formula to apply.

God Names Only the Forbidden Birds (Leviticus 11:13-19)

Every bird God leaves off this list stands permitted, which Moses states plainly later: “Of all clean birds ye shall eat” (Deuteronomy 14:11). Every bird not forbidden may be eaten. A list of what is refused is a shorter leash than a list of what is allowed, and God chose the shorter one. The turtledove and the young pigeon Israel carried to the altar (Leviticus 1:14) are nowhere on the forbidden list.

Every Defilement in This Chapter Has an Expiry (Leviticus 11:24-40)

The phrase “unclean until the even” runs through this half of the chapter, and no sacrifice is asked for anywhere in it. A person who touched a dead mouse was not in sin; they were in a condition, and the condition ended at sundown. Leviticus 5:2 shows the weight that condition did carry, since a man who touched an unclean thing without realising it was still counted guilty and had to bring an offering (Leviticus 5:5-6).

The Warning Turns From the Animal to the Person (Leviticus 11:43)

Up to verse 42 God has been describing creatures. In verse 43 He says, “Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth.” God is warning Israel against making themselves unclean by handling these creatures. The danger God names is not the animal but what the worshipper becomes, and one verse later He gives the reason: He is holy.

Jewish Scribes Marked This Chapter as the Middle of the Torah (Leviticus 11:42)

The scribes who copied the Hebrew Scriptures counted every letter, and they recorded the letter vav in the word for “belly” in Leviticus 11:42 as the middle letter of the five books of Moses.

The same tradition puts the middle words at Leviticus 10:16 and the middle verse at Leviticus 13:33 (Talmud, Kiddushin 30a). By their own reckoning the centre of Moses sits in these chapters about clean and unclean, which is a striking place for the heart of the law to fall.

Difficult Verses Explained

Why Does Leviticus 11:6 Say the Hare Chews the Cud?

The hare does not ruminate the way a cow does, and this is the objection readers meet most often. Moses was writing a law that ordinary families had to apply for themselves, so he described animals as they look and behave rather than as a modern zoologist would classify them.

The hare and the coney both work their jaws in a way an observer would describe exactly this way, and the hare does reprocess food it has already eaten. The Hebrew word behind “hare” is arnebeth, and which animal it names is not certain.

Do Insects Really Walk on All Four in Leviticus 11:20-23?

Insects have six legs, and the phrase “going upon all four” is not a count of them. It describes the low, crawling movement of a creature that goes along the ground, set against the two-legged birds God has just finished listing. Moses speaks the same everyday way in verse 7, calling the pig clovenfooted because that is what its foot looks like.

Why Is the Pig Unclean When It Has a Split Hoof?

The pig fails the second half of the test. God required both marks, and the pig has the hoof without the cud, exactly as the camel has the cud without the hoof. Nothing in the chapter mentions mud, filth or what a pig eats, so the common explanation that the pig was banned for being dirty supplies a reason God never gave.

Why Is the Bat Listed With the Birds?

Leviticus 11 sorts creatures by how they move, not by the categories used in modern biology. Anything that flies is handled in verses 13 to 23, so the bat is filed there with the eagle and the owl. That is a filing choice for a law Israel had to keep, and it makes no claim about what bats are related to.

What Does “Abomination” Mean in This Chapter?

The word marks a creature as forbidden and to be refused as food, not as evil in itself. God made these animals and called His creation good, and the word here belongs to the covenant table rather than to morality. Hebrew uses two words in this chapter, the ordinary one for unclean and this stronger one, which God attaches to water creatures, birds, winged insects and swarming things.

Common Misunderstandings

• “Leviticus 11 is a health code.” God names His ground twice over, in verses 44 and 45, and it is His own holiness. Some of these laws may well have protected Israel from disease, but that is a side benefit rather than the ground God gives.
• “Unclean animals are evil, or badly made.” The chapter classifies creatures for Israel’s use under the covenant. God made the camel and the raven, and He feeds the raven Himself (Job 38:41; Luke 12:24).
• “Chewing the cud stands for meditating on Scripture, and the split hoof for a separated walk.” A long line of devotional writers has read it this way, and Leviticus never says so. The same method makes the lion unclean, since it walks on paws (11:27), while Scripture calls Christ the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5). Read the marks as the plain tests God gave a family to use.
• “Leviticus 11 belongs to the Holiness Code.” The Holiness Code is Leviticus 17 to 26. Chapter 11 opens the laws of cleanness that run from chapter 11 to chapter 15, covering animals, childbirth, skin disease and bodily discharges, and all of them lead to the Day of Atonement in chapter 16.

Christ Connection

Peter takes the last command of this chapter and hands it to the church. “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16). The whole way you live is to match the God who called you, and the words Peter quotes stand in Leviticus 11:44 and again in verse 45.

What changed is the rescue underneath the command. Israel was told to be holy by the God of the exodus, and Peter sets the same command beside a greater redemption, made not with silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19).

The food boundary itself was closed by the One who gave it, and the New Testament says so in four places.

• Mark 7:18-19. Jesus taught that nothing entering a man from outside can defile him, and the same sentence speaks of “purging all meats.”
• Acts 10:9-16 and 10:28. Peter sees a sheet of unclean animals and is told to eat. Over the animals the voice says, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common” (10:15), and Peter applies the vision to people: “God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean” (10:28).
• Acts 15:19-20. The apostles and elders meeting in Jerusalem ruled that Gentile believers were not to be placed under the law of Moses.
• Hebrews 9:9-10. “Meats and drinks, and divers washings” are named as rules imposed only “until the time of reformation,” so food laws and washings had an end date built into them.

One more link is worth drawing carefully, because Leviticus does not draw it. In this chapter death defiles even a clean animal, and defilement travels outward from the dead thing to whoever touches it (11:39-40).

Jesus put out His hand and touched a leper (Mark 1:41), stopped a funeral by touching the bier (Luke 7:14), and took a dead girl by the hand (Mark 5:41), and in every case cleanness travelled the other way. He points toward the answer the whole system of clean and unclean was waiting for.

When, Where, and Why

• When: at Mount Sinai in the second year after the exodus, roughly 1,400 years before Christ. The tent was raised on the first day of the first month of that year (Exodus 40:17) and Israel left the mountain in the second month (Numbers 10:11), so this chapter falls inside a matter of weeks after God moved into the camp.
• Where: the wilderness of Sinai, at the newly raised tent of meeting. The chapter names no place, which fits a law meant for wherever Israel would live rather than for one location.
• Why: because God had just charged Aaron and his sons to teach Israel the difference between holy and common (Leviticus 10:10-11), and this is the first body of teaching that fills that charge. In the ancient world what a household ate said much about whose it was, so making the table a boundary made Israel’s belonging to God a fact of every day rather than of one day in seven. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary points out how unlike Egypt this is: Egypt sorted creatures by whether they belonged to a good power or an evil one, and Israel had just come out of Egypt to a law with nothing of that in it.

Key Verses

“Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.”

Leviticus 11:3

An animal Israel could eat had to have a hoof divided all the way through, and had to bring its food back up to chew it again. This one line carries the whole land-animal law, and every animal named afterwards is an example of failing it.

“For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy.”

Leviticus 11:44

God tells Israel to set themselves apart and be holy, and He gives His own holiness as the reason. This is the sentence the chapter has been building toward, and Peter carries its words to the church.

“For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

Leviticus 11:45

God reminds Israel that He is the One who brought them out of Egypt to be their God, and that is why they are to be holy. The rescue is named before the duty, which is the order God keeps again and again in Scripture.

“To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.”

Leviticus 11:47

These laws existed so Israel could tell clean from unclean, and know which animals were food and which were not. God states His purpose in one line, and it governs the forty-six verses above it.

Key Lessons from Leviticus 11

• God’s holiness reached past the sanctuary and into the ordinary hours of an Israelite’s week (Leviticus 11:44).
• Rescue comes before the command, because God names the exodus first and the duty second (Leviticus 11:45).
• Meeting half of God’s standard was not the standard, since the camel and the pig each passed one test and failed the other (Leviticus 11:4-7).
• Permission to eat an animal did not survive that animal dying on its own (Leviticus 11:39-40).
• God built the way back into the law itself, since every uncleanness here ends at sundown (Leviticus 11:24-25).

To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: 15 Life-Changing Lessons from Leviticus 11.

Bible Study Questions

1. Why does God speak to both Moses and Aaron in verse 1, and what had happened in Leviticus 10 that made Aaron’s part necessary?
2. Leviticus 11 gives a rule for land animals, a rule for water creatures, a bare list for birds, and a ban with an exception for insects. What might four different ways of teaching have trained into Israel that one tidy rule would not?
3. Verses 39 and 40 say that a clean animal still defiles if it dies on its own. What does that tell you about what this chapter is really concerned with?
4. In verse 43 God stops describing creatures and starts describing the worshipper. Why does that turn matter?
5. God gives His reason twice in verses 44 and 45, and both times He mentions Egypt before the command. What difference does that order make to the reason Israel had for obeying?
6. Verse 47 says the purpose was “to make a difference between the unclean and the clean.” Where in an ordinary week are you actually required to tell one from the other?
7. Read Acts 10:9-16 beside this chapter. What did God change there, and what did He leave standing?

Frequently Asked Questions

Leviticus 11, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.

3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.

4 Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

5 And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.

8 Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.

9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.

10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:

11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.

12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

13 And 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,

14 And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;

15 Every raven after his kind;

16 And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,

17 And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl,

18 And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle,

19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

20 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.

21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;

22 Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.

23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

24 And for these ye shall be unclean: whosoever toucheth the carcase of them shall be unclean until the even.

25 And whosoever beareth ought of the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even.

26 The carcases of every beast which divideth the hoof, and is not clovenfooted, nor cheweth the cud, are unclean unto you: every one that toucheth them shall be unclean.

27 And whatsoever goeth upon his paws, among all manner of beasts that go on all four, those are unclean unto you: whoso toucheth their carcase shall be unclean until the even.

28 And he that beareth the carcase of them shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: they are unclean unto you.

29 These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind,

30 And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole.

31 These are unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until the even.

32 And upon whatsoever any of them, when they are dead, doth fall, it shall be unclean; whether it be any vessel of wood, or raiment, or skin, or sack, whatsoever vessel it be, wherein any work is done, it must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the even; so it shall be cleansed.

33 And every earthen vessel, whereinto any of them falleth, whatsoever is in it shall be unclean; and ye shall break it.

34 Of all meat which may be eaten, that on which such water cometh shall be unclean: and all drink that may be drunk in every such vessel shall be unclean.

35 And every thing whereupon any part of their carcase falleth shall be unclean; whether it be oven, or ranges for pots, they shall be broken down: for they are unclean, and shall be unclean unto you.

36 Nevertheless a fountain or pit, wherein there is plenty of water, shall be clean: but that which toucheth their carcase shall be unclean.

37 And if any part of their carcase fall upon any sowing seed which is to be sown, it shall be clean.

38 But if any water be put upon the seed, and any part of their carcase fall thereon, it shall be unclean unto you.

39 And if any beast, of which ye may eat, die; he that toucheth the carcase thereof shall be unclean until the even.

40 And he that eateth of the carcase of it shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even: he also that beareth the carcase of it shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even.

41 And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth shall be an abomination; it shall not be eaten.

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.

43 Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby.

44 For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

45 For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.

46 This is the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and of every creature that creepeth upon the earth:

47 To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.