Verse 3
3. Whatsoever parteth the hoof There is here no limit to the number of divisions, but in Deuteronomy 14:6 we find the words “cleft into two claws.” Thus also the Seventy in this verse.
And cheweth the cud Literally, Causeth what has been chewed to come up. This describes the method of rumination. The ruminant is endowed with four stomachs. The first receives the vegetables coarsely bruised by a first mastication, which pass into the second, where they are moistened and formed into little pellets, which are brought up again to the mouth to be chewed again, then swallowed into the third stomach, from which they pass into the fourth, for final digestion. The qualities required in this verse exclude all carnivorous, but do not include all graminivorous, animals.
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