Swift, shy and hard to catch: the hart and its relatives are mostly pictures in Scripture. Warriors who joined David are called “as swift as the roes upon the mountains”, and Asahel was “as light of foot as a wild roe.” Proverbs 6:5 tells the careless to escape “as a roe from the hand of the hunter.” In Song of Solomon 8:14 the beloved is told to be “like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.” Deuteronomy 12:15 lists the hart among animals that may be eaten, and Jeremiah 14:5 shows a hind leaving her young in a drought.
6 verses
Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee: the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck, and as of the hart.
And there were three sons of Zeruiah there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel: and Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe.
And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David into the hold to the wilderness men of might, and men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains;
Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.
Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
(Heb. ‘ayal), a stag or male deer. It is ranked among the clean animals (Deut. 12:15; 14:5; 15:22), and was commonly killed for food (1 Kings 4:23). The hart is frequently alluded to in the poetical and prophetical books (Isa. 35:6; Cant. 2:8, 9; Lam. 1:6; Ps. 42:1).
William Smith, 1884
the male stag. The word denotes some member of the deer tribe either the fallow deer or the Barbary deer. The hart is reckoned among the clean animals, (12:15; 14:5; 15:22) and seems from the passages quoted, as well as from (1 Kings 4:23) to have been commonly killed for food.