Job 39:26
Doth the hawk wax feathered by thy wisdom, spreading her wings to the south?
Open Job 39:26 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Numquid per sapientiam tuam plumescit accipiter, expandens alas suas ad austrum ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐκ δὲ τῆς σῆς ἐπιστήμης ἕστηκεν ἱέραξ, ἀναπετάσας τὰς πτέρυγας ἀκίνητος, καθορῶν τὰ πρὸς νότον;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- הֲֽ֭מִבִּינָ֣תְךָ יַֽאֲבֶר נֵ֑ץ יִפְרֹ֖שׂ כנפו לְתֵימָֽן
Haydock's commentary
Feathered. Hebrew, "fly." (Haydock)
South, at the approach of "winter retiring" to warmer regions. (Pliny x. 8.)
Septuagint, "spreading her wings, looking unmoved, towards the south." The hawk alone can stare at the sun, and fly to a great height. (Ælian x. 14.)
Hence the Egyptians consecrated this bird to the sun. (Calmet)
The eagle is of the same species, and has the same properties. (Haydock) Aristotle mentions 10, and Pliny 16 species of hawks. (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Cyril of Jerusalem On the Words, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of All Things Visible and Invisible
12. Who can discern the nature of the birds of the air? How some carry with them a voice of melody, and others are variegated with all manner of painting on their wings, and others fly up into mid air and float motionless, as the hawk: for by the Divine command the hawk spreadeth out his wings and floateth motionless, looking towards the south . What man can behold the eagle’s lofty flight? If then thou canst not discern the soaring of the most senseless of the birds, how wouldest thou understand the Maker of all?