JEREMIAH AND THE BIRDS
Posted: 01.02.26 in Articles category
When you hear the name Jeremiah, I don’t suppose you think of birds. Yet the Old Testament prophet made more mention of birds than any other single author in the Bible. The book that bears his name has 18 avian references and a further 3 can be found in Lamentations which he probably wrote with his scribe, Baruch. What’s more, these references cover more kinds of birds than those cited by any other biblical writer. A total of 8 kinds of birds is specified in the New International Version: eagle, dove, owl, partridge, stork, swift, thrush and ostrich. In addition, there’s a mysterious raptor mentioned (at least in the NIV) in Jeremiah chapter 12 verse 9 which I cannot readily identify:
Has not my inheritance become to me like a speckled bird of prey that other birds of prey surround and attack? Go and gather all the wild beasts; bring them to devour.
Biblical commentators have been puzzled about the translation from the Hebrew. Several Bible versions including the NIV as shown above and the English Standard Version translate the reference as "a speckled bird of prey", while others like the King James Bible refer simply to a "speckled bird” and the New Revised Standard Version translates it not as a bird but instead as a "hyena". The verse is part of a discourse in which God answers Jeremiah's complaint that the wicked seem to prosper. "My inheritance" is a term used to signify the land of Judah which faces attack from hostile neighbouring countries - an attack perhaps analogous to the mobbing behaviour of other birds ganging up on a single bird of prey they wish to drive away. It is unclear to me why there is mention of 'speckling', but that very mention inspired a well-known twentieth century American hymn, 'The Great Speckled Bird', recorded by John Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis among others.
While there may be greater variety in the books of Jeremiah in terms of specified kinds of birds, there is markedly less so in terms of their association. One theme stands out loud and clear. Two thirds of the references relate to divine judgement. These include references describing how birds will feed on the bodies of people who have died ultimately of divine judgement, for example this from Jeremiah chapter 15 verse 3:
“I will send four kinds of destroyers against them,” declares the Lord, “the sword to kill and the dogs to drag away and the birds and the wild animals to devour and destroy.
Although birds are described in this passage as destroyers, their role is not to kill, but in keeping with their nature to be carrion eaters feeding on the bodies of people killed in war.
On occasion, the very presence of certain kinds of bird would indicate God's punishment - birds living in the ruins of settlements destroyed by invasion and war. Judgement on Babylon is prophesied in Jeremiah 50 verse 39, resulting in the city becoming a place where "owls will dwell", alongside unspecified animals and hyenas
By contrast, there are also references where the absence of birds is a sign of divine judgement. For example, Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 10 speaks of the mountains and desert pastures made desolate and deserted, cattle being no longer heard and birds fleeing away because of God's punishment for Israel's sin.
There are passages in Jeremiah where foreign armies are identified as agents of divine judgement and are described in avian terms, typically as eagles flying at speed and swooping down on their hapless victim. Sometimes these victims are national enemies of Israel which have incurred God's wrath on account of their enmity such as the Moabites in chapter 48 with this reference to a military power which is likened to a single eagle, probably the Babylonian army led by Nebuchadnezzar:
This is what the Lord says:
“Look! An eagle is swooping down, spreading its wings over Moab.
Kerioth will be captured and the strongholds taken.
In that day the hearts of Moab’s warriors will be like the heart of a woman in labor.
Moab will be destroyed as a nation because she defied the Lord.
The bird passages in the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations might also reflect the author’s observations. For example, in a message to King Jehoiakim Jeremiah noted that birds like storks and swifts evidently knew the seasons of migration (see Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 7). His lament (in chapter 4 verse 3) described the people of Jerusalem and Judah becoming heartless like “ostriches in the desert”, mirroring the comment in the book of Job chapter 39 about parent birds treating their young harshly. Yet what I find most intriguing as a birdwatcher are these words from Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 11 which reads like a proverb:
“Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay are those who gain riches by unjust means. When their lives are half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end they will prove to be fools”.
These days we talk about the phenomenon of ‘brood parasitism’ when hen birds of certain species including the partridge dump their eggs in the nests of other birds who hatch and rear them, oblivious it seems to the fact that those chicks are not their own. Great strategy of course for the parasitic bird, but not for the host bird who wastes her energies and potentially harms her own young. In the words of the prophet Jeremiah, she will prove to be a fool!