- OSPREY Hebrews ‘ozniyyah, an unclean bird according to the Mosaic
law (Leviticus 11:13; Deuteronomy 14:12); the fish-eating eagle (Pandion
haliaetus); one of the lesser eagles. But the Hebrew word may be taken to
denote the short-toed eagle (Circaetus gallicus of Southern Europe), one of
the most abundant of the eagle tribe found in Palestine. - OSSIFRAGE Hebrews peres = to “break” or “crush”, the lammer-geier,
or bearded vulture, the largest of the whole vulture tribe. It was an unclean
bird (Leviticus 11:13; Deuteronomy 14:12). It is not a gregarious bird, and
is found but rarely in Palestine. “When the other vultures have picked the
flesh off any animal, he comes in at the end of the feast, and swallows the
bones, or breaks them, and swallows the pieces if he cannot otherwise
extract the marrow. The bones he cracks [hence the appropriateness of the
name ossifrage, i.e., “bone-breaker”] by letting them fall on a rock from a
great height. He does not, however, confine himself to these delicacies, but
whenever he has an opportunity will devour lambs, kids, or hares. These
he generally obtains by pushing them over cliffs, when he has watched his
opportunity; and he has been known to attack men while climbing rocks,
and dash them against the bottom. But tortoises and serpents are his
ordinary food...No doubt it was a lammer-geier that mistook the bald head
of the poet AEschylus for a stone, and dropped on it the tortoise which
killed him” (Tristram’s Nat. Hist.). - OSTRICH (Lamentations 4:3), the rendering of Hebrew pl. enim; so
called from its greediness and gluttony. The allusion here is to the habit of
the ostrich with reference to its eggs, which is thus described: “The outer
layer of eggs is generally so ill covered that they are destroyed in quantities
by jackals, wild-cats, etc., and that the natives carry them away, only
taking care not to leave the marks of their footsteps, since, when the
ostrich comes and finds that her nest is discovered, she crushes the whole
brood, and builds a nest elsewhere.” In Job 39:13 this word in the
Authorized Version is the rendering of a Hebrew word (notsah) which
means “feathers,” as in the Revised Version. In the same verse the word
“peacocks” of the Authorized Version is the rendering of the Hebrew pl.
renanim, properly meaning “ostriches,” as in the Revised Version. (See
OWL [1].)
kiana
(Kiana)
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