Deuteronomy 14:15 Meaning and Explanation
“And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Translators have wrestled with these four names for centuries, and 'cuckow' is an old spelling that shows how far our English has traveled since 1611. The uncertainty over exact species turns out to matter little. What the verse asks of Israel is clear, and the way it groups creatures teaches us something about how God gave his law to a people who lived close to the land.
Four more birds join the forbidden list, gathering night hunters and daytime hunters alike. The closing phrase extends the ruling to every bird of the hawk family, keeping the instruction simple for ordinary households.
The Context of Deuteronomy 14:15
The setting is Moses' address to Israel in Moab, near the end of his life, restating the covenant for the generation about to cross into Canaan. Deuteronomy 14 moves from mourning customs in verse 1 to identity in verse 2, then through clean and unclean animals, water creatures, and birds. Verses 12 through 14 have named the eagle, ossifrage, ospray, glede, kite, vulture, and raven. Verse 15 adds four more. The list continues in verses 16 through 18 with further owls, the swan, the pelican, the gier eagle, the cormorant, the stork, the heron, the lapwing, and the bat.
What Does Deuteronomy 14:15 Mean?
Read the four names in order and a shape appears. The owl hunts at night. The night hawk, whatever species stood behind the Hebrew, is named for the same hours. The cuckow has been identified variously, and the older translators placed it here among birds of similar habit. The hawk hunts by day. Together they cover the sky around the clock. 'After his kind' comes at the end and reaches back over the hawk in particular, gathering the falcons and kestrels and every relative an Israelite might meet. The list is arranged for use, so a family could decide quickly and get on with the meal.
Deuteronomy repeats older instruction for a new setting, and the bird list is one of the clearest examples. Israel had lived on manna in the wilderness. In Canaan they would hunt, farm, trade, and eat with neighbors whose practices differed at every point. Chapter 14 prepares them for that world. The birds ruled out here share the habit of taking flesh and touching carcasses, and the law elsewhere ties contact with dead bodies to uncleanness. Verse 21 completes the thought by forbidding the eating of anything that dies of itself. What Israel ate was to keep announcing that they belonged to the living God.
Israel's distinctiveness in food was one thread in a larger design, and the New Testament traces where the design was heading. Mark 7 records Jesus teaching that what proceeds out of a person defiles the person, and the chapter turns at once to a woman from Syrophenicia whose faith he honors. Peter learns a matching lesson on a rooftop in Joppa. Romans 14 then asks believers to receive one another without disputing over what is eaten. The purpose held steady across all of it: a people set apart for the LORD. What God shaped in Israel's daily eating he continues to shape in the character of those who follow him.
Deuteronomy 14:15 in the Original Language
bat hayyaanah (בַּת הַיַּעֲנָה), 'the owl' -- a two-word Hebrew name whose exact bird is uncertain. The King James translators rendered it owl here and in Leviticus 11, and other readers have understood it as the ostrich, which shows how carefully these names must be handled.
Bible Verses Related to Deuteronomy 14:15
“And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,”
- Leviticus 11:16
“Of all clean birds ye shall eat.”
- Deuteronomy 14:11
“For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
- Leviticus 11:44
“There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.”
- Mark 7:15
Where Deuteronomy 14:15 Echoes in Scripture
Leviticus 11:16 carries these same birds in the earlier list, and the two verses match almost exactly in the King James rendering. The overlap is a reminder that Deuteronomy is a restatement rather than a new code. Moses is preparing a generation that grew up in the wilderness to live under instruction their parents received at Sinai. Comparing the two passages also helps with the difficult names, since a translator faced the same rare Hebrew words twice and had to render them consistently.
How to Apply Deuteronomy 14:15 Today
Careful attention to small distinctions is a form of love. Israel had to look closely at a bird before deciding, and that habit of looking trained a whole people. Our own lives ask something similar. We can learn to notice what we are actually consuming, in food and in everything else that enters us daily. Reading labels, checking sources, asking where a story came from, thinking about what a habit is doing to us over a year: this is unglamorous work. It builds the kind of alertness that keeps us from drifting without noticing where we have gone.
Reflection & Prayer
When did we last stop to examine something we take in every day without thinking? A prayer: Lord, you cared enough about your people to teach them what to look for. Give us clear eyes and unhurried attention. Show us anything we have been swallowing without examining it, and give us the courage to set it down.