Leviticus 11:13

And these - among the fowls - the eagle - נשר nesher, from nashar, to lacerate, cut, or tear to pieces; hence the eagle, a most rapacious bird of prey, from its tearing the flesh of the animals it feeds on; and for this purpose birds of prey have, in general, strong, crooked talons and a hooked beak. The eagle is a cruel bird, exceedingly ravenous, and almost insatiable.

The ossifrage - Or bone-breaker, from os, a bone, and frango, I break, because it not only strips off the flesh, but breaks the bone in order to extract the marrow. In Hebrew it is called פרס peres, from paras, to break or divide in two, and probably signifies that species of the eagle anciently known by the name of ossifraga, and which we render ossifrage.

Ospray - עזניה ozniyah, from עזן azan, to be strong, vigorous; generally supposed to mean the black eagle, such as that described by Homer, Iliad. lib. xxi., ver. 252.

Αιετου οιματ' εχων μελανος, του θηρητηρος,

Ὁς θ' αμα καρτιστος τε και ωκιστος πετεηνων.

"Having the rapidity of the black eagle, that bird of prey, at once the swiftest and the strongest of the feathered race." Among the Greeks and Romans the eagle was held sacred, and is represented as carrying the thunderbolts of Jupiter. This occurs so frequently, and is so well known, that references are almost needless. See Scheuchzer.

As far as they can be identified, the birds here mentioned are such as live upon animal food. They were those which the Israelites might have been tempted to eat, either from their being easy to obtain, or from the example of other nations, and which served as types of the entire range of prohibited kinds.

Leviticus 11:13

The eagle - Rather, the great vulture, which the Egyptians are known to have ranked as the first among birds. Compare 2 Samuel 1:23; Psalm 103:5; Proverbs 23:5, etc.

The Ossifrage, or bone-breaker, was the lammer-geyer, and the "ospray" (a corruption of ossifrage) the sea-eagle.

11:13 Among the fowls — The true signification of the following Hebrew words is now lost, as the Jews at this day confess; which not falling out without God's singular providence may intimate the cessation of this law, the exact observation whereof since Christ came is become impossible. In general, this may be observed, that the fowls forbidden in diet, are all either ravenous and cruel, or such as delight in the night and darkness, or such as feed upon impure things; and so the signification of these prohibitions is manifest, to teach men to abominate all cruelty or oppression, and all works of darkness and filthiness.

The ossifrage and the osprey — Two peculiar kinds of eagles, distinct from that which being the chief of its kind, is called by the name of the whole kind.