If you ever watched a rabbit, they always look like they are chewing. Cute, funny and cuddly creatures that were forbidden to the Israelites to eat. Well, who wants to eat a rat anyway?
Obviously, rabbits do not share the digestive anatomy of modern ruminants. However, to describe rabbits chewing the cud is not incorrect. Simply stated, it is not reasonable to accuse a 3500-year-old document of error because it does not adhere to a modern man-made classification system.
ANSWER: (From the Answers in Genesis page)
Consider what rabbits do. They engage in an activity called cecotrophy. Rabbits normally produce two kinds of feces, the more common hard feces as well as softer fecal pellets called
cecotropes. Cecotropes are small pellets of partially digested food that are passed through the animal but are then reingested. As part of the normal digestive process, some partially digested food is concentrated in the cecum where it undergoes a degree of fermentation to form these cecotropes. They are then covered in mucin and passed through the anus. The rabbit ingests the cecotropes, which serve as a very important source of nutrition for the animal.
Why would it be strange to think that centuries ago, the idea of “cud” had a somewhat broader meaning than a modern definition.
Is this the same as cud? In the final analysis, it is. Cud-chewing completes the digestion of partially digested food. Why would it be strange to think that centuries ago, the idea of “cud” had a somewhat broader meaning than a modern definition.
But does the rabbit actually
chew the cud? The Hebrew word translated “chew” is the word
‘alah. With any attempt to translate one language to another, it is understood that there is often more than one meaning for a given word. A cursory glace at any Hebrew lexicon reveals that
‘alah can mean go up, ascend, climb, go up into, out of a place, depart, rise up, cause to ascend, bring up from, among others. Here it carries the implication of moving something from one place to another. So the phrase translated to English as “chew the cud” literally means something on the order of “eats that which is brought forth again.”
Also, most reference material on rabbit digestion says that the cecotrope pellet is swallowed whole and found intact in the rabbit stomach. However, experts have observed that rabbits keep the cecotrophe in the mouth for a time before swallowing.
4 So even though the mucin membrane covering the cecotrope is not broken, the rabbit is able to knead it in its mouth before swallowing, possibly to enhance the process of redigestion.
Conclusion
So is the Bible in error here? No it is not. Rabbits re-ingest partially digested foods, as do modern ruminants. They just do so without the aid of multiple stomach compartments.
So now we all know.