Commandment #96 · Positive · Dietary Laws
Identify Kosher Locusts by Their Jointed Legs
סִימָנֵי חֲגָבִים כְּשֵׁרִים
Source: Leviticus 11:21 · Maimonides, Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive #96
In the middle of a chapter built almost entirely from exclusion, this commandment does something rare: it stops to grant a “yes.” The small creature it permits had already shown, in Egypt, how vast a tiny thing could become — and would later give Joel his boldest image of restoration.
אַךְ אֶת זֶה תֹּאכְלוּ מִכֹּל שֶׁרֶץ הָעוֹף הַהֹלֵךְ עַל אַרְבַּע אֲשֶׁר כְרָעַיִם מִמַּעַל לְרַגְלָיו לְנַתֵּר בָּהֵן עַל הָאָרֶץ
"Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;"
The One Surprising "Yes" in a Chapter Full of "No"
Leviticus 11 is, on the whole, a chapter of careful exclusions — creature after creature ruled out by a missing mark or an unfamiliar name. Then, in the middle of its discussion of swarming, flying things, it does something almost startling: it stops and grants an exception. “Every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four” is, as a category, called an abomination just one verse earlier (Leviticus 11:20) — and then this verse opens a door inside that very category: those with “legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth” may, surprisingly, be eaten (Leviticus 11:21), and four kinds are then named (Leviticus 11:22). In a code built mostly from prohibition, this is one of the rare moments the Torah pauses mid-sentence to say: this, against the pattern, you may eat.
When the Permitted Creature Became an Unanswerable Plague
The same small creature this commandment permits at Israel’s table appears, a few books earlier in the story, as one of the most devastating forces ever turned against a kingdom. When Pharaoh refused, again, to let Israel go, Moses stretched out his staff and
וַיַּעַל הָאַרְבֶּה עַל כָּל אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם וַיָּנַח בְּכֹל גְּבוּל מִצְרָיִם כָּבֵד מְאֹד לְפָנָיו לֹא הָיָה כֵן אַרְבֶּה כָּמֹהוּ וְאַחֲרָיו לֹא יִהְיֶה כֵּן
"And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such."
The eighth plague stripped Egypt of every green thing the hail had spared — a small, edible insect, multiplied beyond counting, became an instrument no army or treasury could resist. The same creature Leviticus would later set on Israel’s permitted list had already shown, in Egypt, the difference between a meal and a multitude.
Joel’s Locusts — From Devouring Plague to a Promise of Restored Years
Centuries later, the prophet Joel reached for this same image to describe a different devastation — a swarm so total that “that which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten…and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten” (Joel 1:4). Yet Joel does not end there. In one of Scripture’s most quoted promises of renewal, he turns the very image of loss into a pledge of return:
וְשִׁלַּמְתִּי לָכֶם אֶת הַשָּׁנִים אֲשֶׁר אָכַל הָאַרְבֶּה הַיֶּלֶק וְהֶחָסִיל וְהַגָּזָם חֵילִי הַגָּדוֹל אֲשֶׁר שִׁלַּחְתִּי בָּכֶם
"And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you."
The small creature that could mean a meal in Leviticus and a national catastrophe in Exodus becomes here a measure of just how completely God can repay what was lost — proof that even total devastation does not have the final word.
Study Questions
For reflection and group study
This commandment opens with what looks like a prohibition — “every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four” is an abomination — and then, mid-chapter, carves out an exception for those with jointed legs for leaping. What does it mean that the Torah pauses, here of all places, to grant a surprising “yes”?
See Lev 11:20–23
The same creature this commandment permits Israel to eat becomes, in Exodus, an unanswerable plague that strips Egypt bare. What does it suggest that something small enough to eat can also be vast enough to break a kingdom?
See Ex 10:12–15
Joel describes a locust swarm so total that nothing is left behind — and then promises that God will “restore…the years that the locust hath eaten.” What does it take to turn an image of total loss into a promise of total restoration, and what does Joel’s choice to do exactly that suggest about how he read his own nation’s devastation?
See Joel 1:4; 2:25
Of all the permissions the Torah could have granted in its chapter on swarming things, it grants this one — a tiny, easily overlooked insect. What might it mean that a law this detailed makes room even for something this small?
See Lev 11:21–22
Locusts appear across Scripture as food, as plague, and as a metaphor for both devastation and restoration. What does tracing one small creature through so many different roles teach about how the Bible uses the ordinary details of the natural world to carry its largest ideas?
See Lev 11:21–22; Ex 10:14; Joel 2:25
