‘ Of all clean birds you may eat.'
Again the common birds such as the turtle-dove and pigeons could be eaten, along with many others. They flew in the air, and ate insects and seed. They kept to their proper sphere.
‘ But these are they of which you (ye) shall not eat: the griffon vulture, and the bearded vulture, 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 black vulture, and the cormorant, and the stork, and the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat.'
But others were predators and ate carrion and blood. The ostrich, like the camel, wandered in desert regions, and was noted for her lack of care of her young and buried them in the dust of the earth (Job 39:13-18). The wading birds plunged their beaks into the mud. The bat came from dark secret places, and dwelt in tombs and burial places. All had about them that which was ‘unclean'.
This list is so close to that of Leviticus 11:13-19, even as to order, while expanding on it, that either one must be dependent on the other, or they must come from the same tradition. It could be explained by Leviticus 11:13-19 being in the memory of the speaker, but deliberately added to in speech, as the speaker thought of other similar birds, for in the end it is certain types of birds which must not be eaten, eaters of carrion, wading birds and the like.
‘ And all winged creeping things are unclean to you: they shall not be eaten. Of all clean ‘winged creatures' (or ‘birds') you may eat.'
Winged creeping things were necessarily of the dirt and could not be eaten, but some winged creatures (such as the locust) did not crawl in the dirt but leaped on their legs (Leviticus 11:21). The word used for ‘winged creatures' regularly means ‘bird', and does so in the parallel passage in Leviticus. But here it is clearly connected with winged creeping things. Possibly therefore it must be seen to take its wider meaning of winged creatures, in view of the fact that a different word for birds is used in verse 11. On the other hand it may simply be an added assurance that they can eat clean birds.
In all this we see how God's people were to avoid all that outwardly had about them the taint of their behaviour. They were only to eat of what rose above the things that defile. In essence they could eat what ‘keeps its proper sphere'. This would bring home to them by constant example that they too were to live uplifted and pure lives on the higher plane, which was their proper sphere. Thus would they be worthy of Yahweh.
Unquestionably by following these principles the Israelites would avoid many kinds of disease, but the primary aim was not that but in order to inculcate a proper principle of life, to live wholesomely.