The Hebrew word for 'cud' is gerah, which simply refers to any partially digested food. The process is not the issue, just the object. Refection is a process whereby these animals pass pellets of partially digested food, which they chew on (along with the waste material) in order to give their stomachs another go at getting the nutrients out. It is not just 'dung' that the hares are eating, which is probably why the Hebrew word for 'dung' was not used here.

The problem is that linguistic experts are not necessarily experts in animal biology. It is commonly noted that hares look like they chew cud, such that even Linnaeus was fooled by them and classified them as ruminants. Everyone sees rabbits and hares chewing and might come to the same conclusion, but few know about refection. The related Hebrew word 'alah is not specific to the process of regurgitation but is instead merely a phrase of general movement ('bring up'). The rabbit is an animal that does 'maketh' the previously digested material to 'come' out of the body and does thereafter chew 'predigested material.' The mistake is in applying the scientific terms of rumination to something that does not require it.