Roe

The roe is a graceful, swift deer, and the Bible uses it for speed and beauty. Asahel, one of David’s nephews, was “as light of foot as a wild roe,” and the Gadite warriors who joined David were “as swift as the roes upon the mountains.” Proverbs counsels anyone caught in a promise to flee “as a roe from the hand of the hunter.” The Song of Solomon closes with a lover called to come quickly, like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains. Deuteronomy 12 lists it among animals fit to eat. Jeremiah mentions the hind forsaking her young in a drought.

6 verses

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 12:15

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.

2 Samuel

2 Samuel 2:18

And there were three sons of Zeruiah there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel: and Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe.

1 Chronicles

1 Chronicles 12:8

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;

Proverbs

Proverbs 6:5

Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon 8:14

Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 14:5

Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

(Heb. tsebi), properly the gazelle (Arab. ghazal), permitted for food (Deut. 14:5; comp. Deut. 12:15, 22; 15:22; 1 Kings 4:23), noted for its swiftness and beauty and grace of form (2 Sam. 2:18; 1 Chr. 12:8; Cant. 2:9; 7:3; 8:14).

The gazelle (Gazella dorcas) is found in great numbers in Palestine. “Among the gray hills of Galilee it is still ‘the roe upon the mountains of Bether,’ and I have seen a little troop of gazelles feeding on the Mount of Olives close to Jerusalem itself” (Tristram).

The Hebrew word (‘ayyalah) in Prov. 5: 19 thus rendered (R.V., “doe”), is properly the “wild she-goat,” the mountain goat, the ibex. (See 1 Sam. 24:2; Ps. 104:18; Job 39:1.)

Read the full entry