a flower (from its brilliancy) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
fly
יַֽאֲבֶרya.'a.ver-
H82
to soar · verb, hiphil jussive, 3rd person masculine singular
wisdom
הֲֽ֭מִבִּינָ֣תְךָhami.bi.Na.te.kha
H998
understanding · interrogative particle + preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
stretch
יִפְרֹ֖שׂyif.Ros
H6566
to break apart · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
wings
כְּנָפָ֣יוke.na.fov
H3671
an edge or extremity · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
south
לְתֵימָֽןle.tei.Man
H8486
the south (as being on the right hand of a person facin… · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 16:11 And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house, and…
Deuteronomy 14:15 And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,
Song of Solomon 2:12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
Jeremiah 8:7 Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 39:26–end
The birds of the air are proofs of the wonderful power and providences of God, as well as the beasts of the earth; God here refers particularly to two stately ones: - 1. The hawk, a noble bird of great strength and sagacity, and yet a bird of prey, Job 39:26. This bird is here taken notice of for her flight, which is swift and strong, and especially for the course she steers towards the south, whither she follows the sun in winter, out of the colder countries in the north, especially when she is to cast her plumes and renew them. This is her wisdom, and it was God that gave her this wisdom, not man. Perhaps the extraordinary wisdom of the hawk's flight after her prey was not used then for me…
The instinct by which some birds migrate to warmer climes before winter. Rapid flying peculiarly characterizes the whole hawk genus.
Adam Clarke on Job 39:26
Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom - The hawk is called נץ nets, from its swiftness in darting down upon its prey; hence its Latin name, nisus, which is almost the same as the Hebrew. It may very probably mean the falcon, observes Dr. Shaw. The flight of a strong falcon is wonderfully swift. A falcon belonging to the Duke of Cleves flew out of Westphalia into Prussia in one day; and in the county of Norfolk, a hawk has made a flight at a woodcock of near thirty miles in an hour. Thuanus says, "A hawk flew from London to Paris in one night." It was owing to its swiftness that the Egyptians in their hieroglyphics made it the emblem of the wind.
Stretch her wings toward the south? - Most of the fa…
Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom,.... With so much swiftness, steadiness, and constancy, until she has seized her prey. The Vulgate Latin version and some others read, "does she become feathered", or "begin to have feathers?" and so Bochart: either when first fledged; or when, as it is said (d) she casts her old feathers and gets new ones, and this every year. Now neither her flight nor her feathers, whether at one time or the other, are owing to men, but to the Lord, who gives both;
and stretch her wings towards the south? Being a bird of passage, she moves from colder climates towards the winter, and steers her course to the south towards warmer ones (e); which she does by an instinct in n…
The Church Fathers
How does God keep hawks hovering in the air? How does he provide them with nourishment? You can figure out all that he said from a small number of examples! Why did he not mention beefs or rams or other animals of this kind, but only those that are useless for us and seem to exist without reason? This is in order to show that if wisdom and providence appear in useful animals, they appear even more in those that seem to be useless, because you see that carnivorous birds of prey possess a certain reasonable wisdom that derives from the natural instinct living in each of them. So … some of them are inclined to fight, others scent the corpses, and the vulture remains still in the air.
"Is it your wisdom that has given the hawk its plumage? As the wisdom of God, who is the Christ, gradually forms in us the new man who must have his conversation in heaven? "He remains motionless, his wings extended, and his eyes fixed on the south. Charity freed from all carnality, attaches itself to its double object: it remains unshakable in faith, and far from confiding in itself, it places in God all its hopes, relating everything to Him whose love burns his heart; In order to preserve all his courage in him, he exclaims, "Will not you be subject to the Lord, O my soul? It is my refuge, yes, the Lord is my refuge and I support it: I will not be shaken (6). " 21. "Is it at your command that the eagle will rise in the clouds? As He who commanded Him said, "And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everything to myself." He was going to die for us, and after his resurrection ascend to heaven: "Wherever the body will be," said he, "the eagles will gather there." For he has satiated with supernatural goods one whose youth will be renewed like that of the eagle. The elevation of the eagle may also be related to this passage of St. Paul: "If we are carried away as if outside ourselves, it is for God; As the following passage relating to the vulture relates to this other of the same Apostle "If we are more restrained, it is for you" (4). Here it is: "And that the vulture will wait near his nest perched on the rocks? He no longer expresses the state of a soul which rises in the contemplations of a holy rapture, but the devotion of the one who, in less elevated ways, patiently deals with the salvation of men and who wants the wicked dead to grace to be justified by the word, as devoured by it, to enter the body of the Church. We know that the vulture feeds on corpses. That is why he is near his nest where he lays down his widowers, a figure of works to be done in this life. He is on the rock; For after having said, "If we are more restrained," it is for you, "the Apostle adds immediately:" For the charity of Christ urges us. " "Now the stone was Christ (6). - He will wait motionless. This is the same thought as in this passage: "I feel pressed on both sides I would like to die and be with Jesus Christ, which is unquestionably the best," and relates to the elevation of the eagle. On the other hand, like the vulture waiting near his nest "I want to live…
Dictionary and topics
Hawk — (Heb. netz, a word expressive of strong and rapid flight, and hence appropriate to the hawk). It is an unclean bird (Lev. 11:16; Deut. 14:15). It is common in Syria and surrounding countries. The…
Birds · Habits of — Habits of
Hawk · A — A
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
26 Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom,
Doth it spread its wings towards the south?
27 Or is it at thy command that the eagle soareth aloft,
And buildeth its nest on high?
28 It inhabiteth the rock, and buildeth its nest
Upon the crag of the rock and fastness.
29 From thence it seeketh food,
Its eyes see afar off.
30 And its young ones suck up blood;
And where the slain are, there is it.
The ancient versions are unanimous in testifying that, according to the signification of the root, נץ signifies the hawk (which is significant in the Hieroglyphics): the soaring one, the high-flyer (comp. Arab. nṣṣ, to rise, struggle forwards, and Arab. nḍḍ, to raise the wings for flight). The Hiph. יאבר- (j…
The ram’s horn was sounded in combat to call for the charge (Josh 6:4-6).
Rashi on Job 39:26
the hawk grows a wing Heb. יאבר, the hawk grows a wing. That is an angel resembling a hawk, who stays the severity of the south wind by spreading out his wings, lest it destroy the world.
Doth the hawk get feathers by thy wisdom, stretching her wings toward the South? 92. That the hawk casts off its old feathers every year, as the new grow up, and gets a plumage without intermission, hardly any one is ignorant. But that time of plumage, when it is clothed in the nest, is not here spoken of; because, namely, at that time, being doubtless yet but young, it is not able to stretch its wings towards the South. But that annual plumage is described, which is renewed, as the old feathers become loose. And for domesticated hawks, moist and warm spots are sought out, for them to get their plumage the better. But it is the custom, with wild hawks, to stretch their wings, when the south wind blows, in order that by the mildness of the wind their limbs may become warm, so as to loosen the old feathers. But when there is no wind, they make for themselves a warm air by stretching and flapping their wings against the rays of the sun, and when the pores have thus been opened, either the old feathers fall out, or the new ones grow up. What is it then for the hawk to get its plumage in the south, except that every Saint glows, when he is touched by the breath of the Holy Spirit, and, casting off the habit of his old conversation, assumes the form of the new man? Which Paul advises, saying, Stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new man. [Col. 3, 9] And again; Though that outward man of ours be corrupted, yet that which is within is renewed day by day. [2 Cor. 4, 16] But to cast off the old feathers, is to give up the inveterate pursuit of crafty conduct; and to assume the new, is, by good living, to maintain a gentle and simple feeling. For the feather of old conversation weighs down, and the plumage of the new change raises up, to render it the lighter for flight, as it makes it newer. 93. And He well says, It stretches its wings towards the South. For to stretch out our wings towards the South, is, by the coming of the Holy Spirit, to open our hearts in confession, so as no longer to take pleasure in concealing ourselves by defence, but in exposing ourselves by accusation. The hawk, therefore, then gains its plumage, when it has stretched out its wings towards the South, because every one then clothes himself with the feathers of virtues, when, by confession, he subjects his thoughts to the Holy Spirit. For he, who lays not…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
