Cormorant

The cormorant is a water bird that turns up in two kinds of passage. In the law it appears in lists of creatures Israel was not to eat, beside the pelican, the little owl and the great owl. In the prophets it is a sign of a ruined place. Isaiah says of a fallen land, “the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it,” and Zephaniah sees both birds lodging “in the upper lintels” of a city left desolate. Where people leave, the birds move in. The lists are in Leviticus 11:13-19, the empty city in Zephaniah 2:13-15.

4 verses

Leviticus

Leviticus 11:17

And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl,

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 14:17

And the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant,

Isaiah

Isaiah 34:11

But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.

Zephaniah

Zephaniah 2:14

And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

(Lev. 11:17; Deut. 14:17), Heb. shalak, “plunging,” or “darting down,” (the Phalacrocorax carbo), ranked among the “unclean” birds; of the same family group as the pelican. It is a “plunging” bird, and is common on the coasts and the island seas of Palestine. Some think the Hebrew word should be rendered “gannet” (Sula bassana, “the solan goose”); others that it is the “tern” or “sea swallow,” which also frequents the coasts of Palestine as well as the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan valley during several months of the year. But there is no reason to depart from the ordinary rendering.

In Isa. 34:11, Zeph. 2:14 (but in R.V., “pelican”) the Hebrew word rendered by this name is ka’ath. It is translated “pelican” (q.v.) in Ps. 102:6. The word literally means the “vomiter,” and the pelican is so called from its vomiting the shells and other things which it has voraciously swallowed. (See PELICAN.)

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From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

the representative in the Authorized Version of the Hebrew words kaath and shalac . As to the former, see PELICAN. Shalac occurs only as the name of an unclean bird in (Leviticus 11:17; 14:17) The word has been variously rendered. The etymology points to some plunging bird. The common cormorant (phalacrocorax carbo), which some writers have identified with the shalac , is unknown in the eastern Mediterranean; another species is found south of the Red Sea, but none on the west coast of Palestine.