Leviticus 11:13 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The true signification of these and the following Hebrew words is now lost, as the Jews at this day confess, which not falling out without God's singular providence may intimate the cessation or abolition of this law, the exact observation whereof since Christ came is become impossible. In general, this may be observed, that the fowls forbidden in diet are all either ravenous and cruel, or such as delight in the night and darkness, or such as feed upon impure things; and so the signification and reason of these prohibitions is manifest, to teach men to abominate all cruelty or oppression, and all works of darkness and filthiness. The ossifrage and the ospray are two peculiar kinds of eagles, distinct from that which, being the chief of its kind, is called by the name of the whole kind, as it usually happens.