Commentary for Leviticus 11:41

‎‎‎‏על הארץ ‎ושרץ THAT CREEPETH ON THE EARTH — the law is worded thus in order to exclude the insects in peas and in beans and the mites in lentils, for, you see, these do not move about on the ground but inside the food, but so soon as they have emerged into the air and have moved about they become prohibited to be eaten (Sifra, Shemini, Chapter 12 1; Chullin 67b).

AND EVERY CREEPING THING THAT CREEPETH UPON THE EARTH IS A DETESTABLE THING; IT SHALL NOT BE EATEN. The meaning of this verse is as follows: He mentioned above the [eight] creeping things²⁷⁶Ibid., Verses 29-30. in connection with impurity [conveyed through contact when they are dead], and expressly mentioned those that are impure, but did not speak at all of the prohibition of eating. It is for this reason that He now says, And every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth is a detestable thing; it shall not be eaten, meaning to say that as far as eating is concerned, there is no difference between them, for they are all forbidden. Then He spoke of them again in detail [in the following verses], and increased the negative commandments about them, [in order to increase the liability] to whipping, just as Rashi mentioned.²⁷⁷Verse 44: “Neither shall ye defile yourselves. This is repeated to indicate that a person transgresses many negative commandments if he eats the detestable things” (Rashi).

וכל השרץ השורץ על הארץ, “and every teeming creature whose habitat is the earth (land, as opposed to the water and oceans).” Seeing that there are only 8 of these species whose cadavers confer ritual contamination, one might have thought that all the other species are also fit to be eaten. The Torah therefore spells out that none of these species may be eaten.