And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten.
Every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you. 'The edible kinds of locusts are passed over, because it was not the intention of Moses to repeat every particular of the earlier laws in these addresses. But when Knobel gives this explanation of the omission that the eating of locusts is prohibited in Deuteronomy, and the Deuteronomist passes over, because in his more advanced age there was apparently no longer any necessity for the prohibition, this arbitrary interpretation is proved to be at variance with historical truth, by the fact that locusts were eaten by John the Baptist, inasmuch as this proves, at all events, that a more advanced age had not given up the custom of eating locusts (Keil and Delitzsch 'On the Pentateuch,' Clark's edition, 2:, p. 367, note).