Mouse(mice)
Summary
A small rodent listed among unclean animals, associated with the Philistine plague and mentioned in Isaiah's condemnation.
☩Unclean Animal
The mouse was classified among unclean 'creeping things': 'The weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind' (Leviticus 11:29). Contact with their carcasses made one unclean until evening (Leviticus 11:31). The Hebrew 'akbar likely includes various rodents including mice and rats.
☩Philistine Plague
When the Philistines captured the Ark, God afflicted them with tumors and 'mice that mar the land' (1 Samuel 6:5). Their priests advised sending the Ark back with guilt offerings including 'five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines' (1 Samuel 6:4). This plague of mice devastated their agriculture.
☩Idolatrous Eating
Isaiah condemned those practicing pagan rituals: 'They that sanctify themselves... in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD' (Isaiah 66:17). Eating mice was apparently part of certain idolatrous practices, adding religious defilement to physical uncleanness.
