Hawk

Is the hawk’s flight your doing? God puts the question to Job: “Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?” The bird needs no instruction from a man. Elsewhere the hawk appears in the lists of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, among the birds that Israel was not to eat, named “after his kind” beside the owl and the night hawk. So the hawk is both an unclean bird in the law and a small proof, in Job, that creation runs on wisdom far greater than ours. Job 39 is the place to read.

3 verses

Leviticus

Leviticus 11:16

And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 14:15

And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,

Job

Job 39:26

Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

(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 Hebrew word includes various species of Falconidae, with special reference perhaps to the kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), the hobby (Hypotriorchis subbuteo), and the lesser kestrel (Tin, Cenchris). The kestrel remains all the year in Palestine, but some ten or twelve other species are all migrants from the south. Of those summer visitors to Palestine special mention may be made of the Falco sacer and the Falco lanarius. (See NIGHT-HAWK.)

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From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

(Leviticus 11:16; 14:15; Job 39:26) The hawk includes various species of the Falconidae . With respect to the passage in Job (l.c.) which appears to allude to the migratory habits of hawks, it is curious to observe that of the ten or twelve lesser raptors (hawk tribe) of Palestine, nearly all are summer migrants. The kestrel remains all the year, but the others are all migrants from the south.