נשר, Exod. xix, 4; Lev. xi, 13. The name is derived from a verb
which signifies to _lacerate_, or _tear in pieces_. The eagle has always
been considered as the king of birds, on account of its great strength,
rapidity and elevation of flight, natural ferocity, and the terror it
inspires into its fellows of the air. Its voracity is so great that a
large extent of territory is requisite for the supply of proper
sustenance; and providence has therefore constituted it a solitary
animal: two pair of eagles are never found in the same neighbourhood,
though the genus is dispersed through every quarter of the world. Its
sight is quick, strong, and piercing, to a proverb. In Job xxxix, 27,
the natural history of the eagle is finely drawn up:--
Is it at thy voice that the eagle soars?
And therefore maketh his nest on high?
The rock is the place of his habitation.
He abides on the crag, the place of strength.
Thence he pounces upon his prey.
His eyes discern afar off.
Even his young ones drink down blood;
And wherever is slaughter, there is he.
Alluding to the popular opinion that the eagle assists its feeble young
in their flight, by bearing them up on its own pinions, Moses represents
Yahweh as saying, “Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I
bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself,” Exod. xix, 4.
Scheuchzer has quoted from an ancient poet, the following beautiful
paraphrase on this passage:--
_Ac velut alituum princeps, fulvusque tonantis
Armiger, implumes, et adhue sine robore natos
Sollicita refovet cura, pinguisque ferinæ
Indulget pastus: mox ut cum viribus alæ
Vesticipes crevere, vocat se blandior aura,
Expansa invitat pluma, dorsoque morantes
Excipit, attollitque humeris, plausuque secundo
Fertur in arva, timens oneri, et tamen impete presso
Remigium tentans alarum, incurvaque pinnis
Vela legens, humiles tranat sub nubibus oras.
Hinc sensim supra alta petit, jam jamque sub astra
Erigitur, cursusque leves citus urget in auras,
Omnia pervolitans late loca, et agmine fœtus
Fertque refertque suos vario, moremque volandi
Addocet: illi autem, longa assuetudine docti,
Paulatim incipiunt pennis se credere cælo
Impavidi: tantum a teneris valet addere curam._
[And as the king of birds, and tawny armour-bearer of the Thunderer,
cherishes with anxious care his unfledged, and as yet feeble young, and
gratifies their appetite with rich prey: presently when their downy
wings have increased in strength, a milder air calls them forth, with
expanded plumage he invites them, and receives them hesitating on his
back, and sustains them on his shoulders, and with easy flight is borne
over the fields, fearing for his burden, and yet with a moderated effort
trying the rowing of their wings, and furling with his pinions his
curved sails, he glides through the low regions beneath the clouds.
Hence by degrees he soars aloft, and now he mounts to the starry heaven,
and swiftly urges his rapid flight through the air, sweeping widely over
space, and in his gyrations bearing his offspring to and fro, teaches
them the art of flying:--but they, taught by long practice, gradually
begin to trust themselves fearlessly on their wings: So much does it
avail to train the young with care.]
2. When Balaam delivered his predictions respecting the fate that
awaited the nations which he then particularized, he said of the
Kenites, “Strong is thy dwelling, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock,”
Num. xxiv, 21; alluding to that princely bird, the eagle, which not only
delights in soaring to the loftiest heights, but chooses the highest
rocks, and most elevated mountains, as desirable situations for erecting
its nest, Hab. ii, 9; Obad. 4. What Job says concerning the eagle, which
is to be understood in a literal sense, “Where the slain are, there is
he,” our Saviour turns into a fine parable: “Wheresoever the carcass is,
there will the eagles be gathered together,” Matt. xxiv, 28; that is,
Wherever the Jews are, who have corruptly fallen from God, there will be
the Romans, who bore the eagle as their standard, to execute vengeance
upon them, Luke xvii, 37.
3. The swiftness of the flight of the eagle is alluded to in several
passages of Scripture; as, “The Lord shall bring a nation against thee
from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth,”
Deut. xxviii, 49. In the affecting lamentation of David over Saul and
Jonathan, their impetuous and rapid career is described in forcible
terms: “They were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions,” 2
Sam. i, 23. Jeremiah when he beheld in vision the march of
Nebuchadnezzar, cried, “Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his
chariots shall be as a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Wo
unto us, for we are spoiled,” Jer. iv, 13. To the wide-expanded wings of
the eagle, and the rapidity of his flight, the same prophet beautifully
alludes in a subsequent chapter, where he describes the subversion of
Moab by the same ruthless conqueror: “Behold, he shall fly as an eagle,
and spread his wings over Moab,” Jer. xlviii, 40. In the same manner he
describes the sudden desolations of Ammon in the next chapter; but, when
he turns his eye to the ruins of his own country, he exclaims, in still
more energetic language, “Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of
the heavens,” Lament. iv, 19. Under the same comparison the patriarch
Job describes the rapid flight of time: “My days are passed away, as the
eagle that hasteth to the prey,” Job ix, 26. The surprising rapidity
with which the blessings of common providence sometimes vanish from the
grasp of the possessor is thus described by Solomon: “Riches certainly
make themselves wings: they fly away as an eagle toward heaven,” Prov.
xxiii, 5. The flight of this bird is as sublime as it is rapid and
impetuous. None of the feathered race soar so high. In his daring
excursions he is said to leave the clouds of heaven, and regions of
thunder, and lightning, and tempest, far beneath him, and to approach
the very limits of ether. There is an allusion to this lofty soaring in
the prophecy of Obadiah, concerning the pride of Moab: “Though thou
exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the
stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord,” Obad. 4. The
prophet Jeremiah pronounces the doom of Edom in similar terms: “O thou
that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the
hill; though thou shouldest make thy nest high as the eagle, I will
bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord,” Jer. xlix, 16. The eagle
lives and retains its vigour to a great age; and, after moulting, renews
its vigour so surprisingly, as to be said, hyperbolically, to become
young again, Psalm ciii, 5, and Isaiah xl, 31. It is remarkable that
Cyrus, compared, in Isaiah xlvi, 11, to an eagle, (so the word
translated “ravenous bird” should be rendered,) had an eagle for his
ensign according to Xenophon, who uses, without knowing it, the
identical word of the prophet, with only a Greek termination to it: so
exact is the correspondence between the prophet and the historian, the
prediction and the event. Xenophon and other ancient historians inform
us that the golden eagle with extended wings was the ensign of the
Persian monarchs long before it was adopted by the Romans; and it is
very probable that the Persians borrowed the symbol from the ancient
Assyrians, in whose banners it waved, till imperial Babylon bowed her
head to the yoke of Cyrus. If this conjecture be well founded, it
discovers the reason why the sacred writers, in describing the
victorious march of the Assyrian armies, allude so frequently to the
expanded eagle. Referring to the Babylonian monarch, the prophet Hosea
proclaimed in the ears of all Israel, the measure of whose iniquities
was nearly full, “He shall come as an eagle against the house of the
Lord,” Hosea viii, 1. Jeremiah predicted a similar calamity: “Thus saith
the Lord, Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and spread his wings over
Moab,” Jer. xlviii, 40; and the same figure was employed to denote the
destruction that overtook the house of Esau: “Behold, he shall come up
and fly as the eagle, and spread his wings over Bozrah,” xlix, 22. The
words of these prophets received a full accomplishment in the
irresistible impetuosity and complete success with which the Babylonian
monarchs, and particularly Nebuchadnezzar, pursued their plans of
conquest. Ezekiel denominates him, with great propriety, “a great eagle
with great wings,” because he was the most powerful monarch of his time,
and led into the field more numerous and better appointed armies, (which
the prophet calls, by a beautiful figure, “his wings,” the wings of his
army,) than perhaps the world had ever seen. The Prophet Isaiah,
referring to the same monarch, predicted the subjugation of Judea in
these terms: “He shall pass through Judah. He shall overflow, and go
over. He shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his
wings” (the array of his army) “shall fill the breadth of thy land, O
Immanuel,” Isaiah viii, 8. The king of Egypt is also styled by Ezekiel,
“a great eagle, with great wings, and many feathers;” but he manifestly
gives the preference to the king of Babylon, by adding, that he had
“long wings, full of feathers, which had divers colours;” that is,
greater wealth, and a more numerous army.
which signifies to _lacerate_, or _tear in pieces_. The eagle has always
been considered as the king of birds, on account of its great strength,
rapidity and elevation of flight, natural ferocity, and the terror it
inspires into its fellows of the air. Its voracity is so great that a
large extent of territory is requisite for the supply of proper
sustenance; and providence has therefore constituted it a solitary
animal: two pair of eagles are never found in the same neighbourhood,
though the genus is dispersed through every quarter of the world. Its
sight is quick, strong, and piercing, to a proverb. In Job xxxix, 27,
the natural history of the eagle is finely drawn up:--
Is it at thy voice that the eagle soars?
And therefore maketh his nest on high?
The rock is the place of his habitation.
He abides on the crag, the place of strength.
Thence he pounces upon his prey.
His eyes discern afar off.
Even his young ones drink down blood;
And wherever is slaughter, there is he.
Alluding to the popular opinion that the eagle assists its feeble young
in their flight, by bearing them up on its own pinions, Moses represents
Yahweh as saying, “Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I
bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself,” Exod. xix, 4.
Scheuchzer has quoted from an ancient poet, the following beautiful
paraphrase on this passage:--
_Ac velut alituum princeps, fulvusque tonantis
Armiger, implumes, et adhue sine robore natos
Sollicita refovet cura, pinguisque ferinæ
Indulget pastus: mox ut cum viribus alæ
Vesticipes crevere, vocat se blandior aura,
Expansa invitat pluma, dorsoque morantes
Excipit, attollitque humeris, plausuque secundo
Fertur in arva, timens oneri, et tamen impete presso
Remigium tentans alarum, incurvaque pinnis
Vela legens, humiles tranat sub nubibus oras.
Hinc sensim supra alta petit, jam jamque sub astra
Erigitur, cursusque leves citus urget in auras,
Omnia pervolitans late loca, et agmine fœtus
Fertque refertque suos vario, moremque volandi
Addocet: illi autem, longa assuetudine docti,
Paulatim incipiunt pennis se credere cælo
Impavidi: tantum a teneris valet addere curam._
[And as the king of birds, and tawny armour-bearer of the Thunderer,
cherishes with anxious care his unfledged, and as yet feeble young, and
gratifies their appetite with rich prey: presently when their downy
wings have increased in strength, a milder air calls them forth, with
expanded plumage he invites them, and receives them hesitating on his
back, and sustains them on his shoulders, and with easy flight is borne
over the fields, fearing for his burden, and yet with a moderated effort
trying the rowing of their wings, and furling with his pinions his
curved sails, he glides through the low regions beneath the clouds.
Hence by degrees he soars aloft, and now he mounts to the starry heaven,
and swiftly urges his rapid flight through the air, sweeping widely over
space, and in his gyrations bearing his offspring to and fro, teaches
them the art of flying:--but they, taught by long practice, gradually
begin to trust themselves fearlessly on their wings: So much does it
avail to train the young with care.]
2. When Balaam delivered his predictions respecting the fate that
awaited the nations which he then particularized, he said of the
Kenites, “Strong is thy dwelling, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock,”
Num. xxiv, 21; alluding to that princely bird, the eagle, which not only
delights in soaring to the loftiest heights, but chooses the highest
rocks, and most elevated mountains, as desirable situations for erecting
its nest, Hab. ii, 9; Obad. 4. What Job says concerning the eagle, which
is to be understood in a literal sense, “Where the slain are, there is
he,” our Saviour turns into a fine parable: “Wheresoever the carcass is,
there will the eagles be gathered together,” Matt. xxiv, 28; that is,
Wherever the Jews are, who have corruptly fallen from God, there will be
the Romans, who bore the eagle as their standard, to execute vengeance
upon them, Luke xvii, 37.
3. The swiftness of the flight of the eagle is alluded to in several
passages of Scripture; as, “The Lord shall bring a nation against thee
from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth,”
Deut. xxviii, 49. In the affecting lamentation of David over Saul and
Jonathan, their impetuous and rapid career is described in forcible
terms: “They were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions,” 2
Sam. i, 23. Jeremiah when he beheld in vision the march of
Nebuchadnezzar, cried, “Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his
chariots shall be as a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Wo
unto us, for we are spoiled,” Jer. iv, 13. To the wide-expanded wings of
the eagle, and the rapidity of his flight, the same prophet beautifully
alludes in a subsequent chapter, where he describes the subversion of
Moab by the same ruthless conqueror: “Behold, he shall fly as an eagle,
and spread his wings over Moab,” Jer. xlviii, 40. In the same manner he
describes the sudden desolations of Ammon in the next chapter; but, when
he turns his eye to the ruins of his own country, he exclaims, in still
more energetic language, “Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of
the heavens,” Lament. iv, 19. Under the same comparison the patriarch
Job describes the rapid flight of time: “My days are passed away, as the
eagle that hasteth to the prey,” Job ix, 26. The surprising rapidity
with which the blessings of common providence sometimes vanish from the
grasp of the possessor is thus described by Solomon: “Riches certainly
make themselves wings: they fly away as an eagle toward heaven,” Prov.
xxiii, 5. The flight of this bird is as sublime as it is rapid and
impetuous. None of the feathered race soar so high. In his daring
excursions he is said to leave the clouds of heaven, and regions of
thunder, and lightning, and tempest, far beneath him, and to approach
the very limits of ether. There is an allusion to this lofty soaring in
the prophecy of Obadiah, concerning the pride of Moab: “Though thou
exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the
stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord,” Obad. 4. The
prophet Jeremiah pronounces the doom of Edom in similar terms: “O thou
that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the
hill; though thou shouldest make thy nest high as the eagle, I will
bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord,” Jer. xlix, 16. The eagle
lives and retains its vigour to a great age; and, after moulting, renews
its vigour so surprisingly, as to be said, hyperbolically, to become
young again, Psalm ciii, 5, and Isaiah xl, 31. It is remarkable that
Cyrus, compared, in Isaiah xlvi, 11, to an eagle, (so the word
translated “ravenous bird” should be rendered,) had an eagle for his
ensign according to Xenophon, who uses, without knowing it, the
identical word of the prophet, with only a Greek termination to it: so
exact is the correspondence between the prophet and the historian, the
prediction and the event. Xenophon and other ancient historians inform
us that the golden eagle with extended wings was the ensign of the
Persian monarchs long before it was adopted by the Romans; and it is
very probable that the Persians borrowed the symbol from the ancient
Assyrians, in whose banners it waved, till imperial Babylon bowed her
head to the yoke of Cyrus. If this conjecture be well founded, it
discovers the reason why the sacred writers, in describing the
victorious march of the Assyrian armies, allude so frequently to the
expanded eagle. Referring to the Babylonian monarch, the prophet Hosea
proclaimed in the ears of all Israel, the measure of whose iniquities
was nearly full, “He shall come as an eagle against the house of the
Lord,” Hosea viii, 1. Jeremiah predicted a similar calamity: “Thus saith
the Lord, Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and spread his wings over
Moab,” Jer. xlviii, 40; and the same figure was employed to denote the
destruction that overtook the house of Esau: “Behold, he shall come up
and fly as the eagle, and spread his wings over Bozrah,” xlix, 22. The
words of these prophets received a full accomplishment in the
irresistible impetuosity and complete success with which the Babylonian
monarchs, and particularly Nebuchadnezzar, pursued their plans of
conquest. Ezekiel denominates him, with great propriety, “a great eagle
with great wings,” because he was the most powerful monarch of his time,
and led into the field more numerous and better appointed armies, (which
the prophet calls, by a beautiful figure, “his wings,” the wings of his
army,) than perhaps the world had ever seen. The Prophet Isaiah,
referring to the same monarch, predicted the subjugation of Judea in
these terms: “He shall pass through Judah. He shall overflow, and go
over. He shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his
wings” (the array of his army) “shall fill the breadth of thy land, O
Immanuel,” Isaiah viii, 8. The king of Egypt is also styled by Ezekiel,
“a great eagle, with great wings, and many feathers;” but he manifestly
gives the preference to the king of Babylon, by adding, that he had
“long wings, full of feathers, which had divers colours;” that is,
greater wealth, and a more numerous army.