Deuteronomy 14:4

LISTS OF CLEAN AND UNCLEAN CREATURES

"These are the beasts which ye may eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, the hart, and the gazelle, and the roebuck, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the antelope, and the chamois. And every beast that parteth the hoof, and hath the hoof cloven in two, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that may ye eat. Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that hath the hoof cloven: The camel, and the hare, and the coney, because they chew the cud but part not the hoof, they are unclean unto you. And the swine, because he parteth the hoof but cheweth not the cud, he is unclean unto you: of their flesh ye shall not eat, and their carcasses ye shall not touch.

"These ye may eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales, may ye eat; and whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye shall not eat; it is unclean unto you.

"Of all clean birds ye may eat. But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the gier-eagle, and the osprey and the glede, and the falcon, and the kite after its kind, and every raven after its kind, and the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea mew, and the hawk after its kind, the little owl, and the great owl, and the horned owl, and the pelican, and the vulture, and the cormorant, and the stork, and the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat. And all winged creeping things are unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten. Of all clean birds ye may eat.

"Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it unto the sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk."

"These verses agree closely with Leviticus 11:2-23,"[6] and we have already commented extensively on these regulations in my Commentary (Vol. 3) on Leviticus-Numbers en loco. However, the last sentence above regarding seething a kid in its mother's milk, is a reference to Exodus 23;19, and is not found in Leviticus 11. For generations men could discern no reason whatever for such a prohibition as this, and Rawlinson said, "Reason has nothing to say against such a mode of preparing food."[7] However, the mystery was unlocked in 1930, when the reason for this pagan practice was discovered in Ugaritic literature.[8] The pagans used such a broth to increase the fertility of their crops. The pagan idea was that the new life of the kid added to its mother's milk created double fertility.[9] In this light, there is no question of why God prohibited His people from indulging such a pagan superstition.

The permission to sell to foreigners (Deuteronomy 14:21) is apparently mentioned here for the first time because, "such permission would have been useless in the wilderness."[10]