Night Hawk

The nighthawk appears in scripture only as one of the birds Israel may not eat. Both dietary lists in the Torah place it within the same short cluster of unclean flying creatures.

Forbidden as Food

The Levitical catalogue of unclean birds includes "the ostrich, and the nighthawk, and the seamew, and the hawk after its kind" (Lev 11:16). The Deuteronomic restatement repeats the same group in the same order: "the ostrich, and the nighthawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk after its kind" (Deut 14:15). Beyond these twin listings the bird is not mentioned again.