Deer
DEER
A wild quadruped, of a middle size between the stag and the roebuck; its horns turn inward, and are large and flat. The fallow deer is naturally very timorous: it was reputed clean, and good for food, Deu 14:5 . Young deer are noticed in Proverbs, Songs, and Isaiah, as beautiful creatures, and very swift, Pro 5:19 . See HIND.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Deer
Ancient abbey , Aberdeenshire, Scotland. According to legend it was founded during the last quarter of the 6th century by monks from Iona, under Saint Columba and Saint Drostan. In 1219 the Earl of Buchan divided the abbey lands between a parochial church and New Deer, a newly founded Cistercian monastery which remained in existence until the Reformation. One of the oldest monuments of Scottish literature is the Book of Deer, now in the Cambridge University library. It is an illuminated Latin and Gaelic manuscript of the 9th century and later containing the Apostles’ Creed , parts of the Gospels and of a Scottish office for Communion of the sick , and notes regarding the abbey .
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Deer
Deer. From early times, deer were game animals. Isaac’s son Esau was “a skillful hunter” (Gen 25:27). And it was Isaac’s craving for deer meat that enabled Jacob to steal his dying father’s blessing (Gen. 27). Deer were still plentiful in Palestine in Solomon’s day and were served at his table (1Ki 4:23). Jews could eat deer because this animal “chews the cud” and “divides the hoof.” (A deer track perfectly illustrates a “divided hoof.”)
The Bible contains many references to deer. The animal was admired for its agility and grace, its ability to sense danger quickly, and its swiftness. Biblical writers also noted the doe’s gentle care of her young. A young deer is called a fawn (Son 4:5; Son 7:3). The psalmist thought of the long journey for water that a deer faces in dry seasons and exclaimed: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God” (Psa 42:1). Isaiah wrote of the feelings of joy and elation when he wrote, “the lame shall leap like a deer” (Psa 35:6).
Scholars are not sure of the precise species or kind of deer Esau hunted or Solomon served. The terms stag or buck (male), hart (male), and hind (female) are used of the red deer common in Europe, which has never lived in Palestine. Likely candidates are the fallow deer (Deu 14:5), (KJV), which was common in Mesopotamia, and the roe deer, often called by its male name, roe buck (Deu 14:5), (RSV). Bible translators often interchanged terms for various kinds of deer, and for gazelle as well; so readers must settle for informed guesses about the exact species intended. Also see Antelope, Gazelle.
Fuente: Plants Animals Of Bible
Deer
Although this word occurs in the English Bible only in the connection FALLOW DEER SEE FALLOW DEER (q.v.), it properly represents several terms in the original, which are variously translated, and which denote widely different members of the antelope and cervic families. SEE CHAMOIS; SEE GOAT; SEE OX; SEE PYGARG; SEE ROE, etc. For the proper deer we find the following variations of the same word ayyal’ (, an intensive of , q. d. a large ram; Sept. ), the male, always rendered hart (q.v.), occurs Deu 12:15; Deu 12:22; Deu 14:5; Deu 15:22; 1Ki 4:23; Psa 42:1; Son 2:9; Son 2:17; Son 8:14; Isa 35:6; Lam 1:6 : ayyalah/ (, Gen 49:21; 2Sa 22:34; Job 39:1; Psa 18:33; Psa 29:9; Son 2:7; Son 3:5; Hab 3:19), or ayye’leth (, Pro 5:19; Jer 14:5), the female, always rendered hind in our version (Sept. ). Many recent writers, however, either suppose different species of antelope to be meant, or, with Dr. Shaw, consider the term to be generic for several species of deer taken together. Sir J. G. Wilkinson believes the ayyal to be the Ethiopian oryx, with nearly straight horns. SEE ANTELOPE.
It should be observed, however, that an Ethiopian species could not well be meant where the clean animals fit for the food of the Hebrews are indicated, nor where allusion is made to suffering from thirst, and to high and rocky places as the refuge of females, or of both, since all the species of oryx inhabit the open plains, and are not remarkable for their desire of drinking; nor can either of these propensities be properly ascribed to the true antelopes, or gazellae, of Arabia and Syria, all being residents of the plain and the desert; like the oryges, often seen at immense distances from water, and unwilling to venture into forests, where their velocity of flight and delicacy of structure impede and destroy them. Taking the older interpretation, and reviewing all the texts where hart and hind are mentioned, we find none where these objections truly apply. Animals of the stag kind prefer the security of forests, are always most robust in rocky mountain covers, and seek water with considerable anxiety; for of all the light-footed ruminants, they alone protrude the tongue when hard pressed in the chase. Now, comparing these qualities with several texts, we find them perfectly appropriate to the species of these genera alone. Ayyal appears to be a mutation of a common name with ; and although no great stress should be laid on names which, more particularly in early times, were used without much attention to specific identity, yet we find the Chaldee ajal and Sarmatic jelen strictly applied to stag. Hence the difficulty lay in the modern denial that ruminants with branched deciduous horns existed in the south-west of Asia and Egypt; and Cuvier for some time doubted, notwithstanding Virgil’s notice, whether they were found in any part of Africa; nevertheless, though not abundant where water is rare, their existence from Morocco to the Nile, and beyond it, cannot be denied; and it is likely that an Asiatic species still appears sometimes in Syria, and, no doubt, was formerly common there (see the Penny Cycloepedia, s.v. Deer).
1. The species usually referred to by the above Heb. terms is probably that now known by the name of Cervus barbarus, or Barbary stag, in size between the red and fallow deer, distinguished by the want of a bisantler, or second branch on the horns, reckoning from below, and by a spotted livery, which is effaced only in the third or fourth year. This species is figured on Egyptian monuments, is still occasionally seen about the natron lakes west of the Nile, and, it seems, has been observed by travelers in the desert east of the Dead Sea, on the route from Cairo towards Damascus. We take this to be the igial or ajal of the Arabs, the same which they accuse of eating fish that is, the ceps, lizards, and snakes, a propensity common to other species, and similarly ascribed to the Virginian and Mexican deer.
2. Another species is the Persian stag, or maral of the Tahtar nations, and gewazen of Armenia, larger than the stag of Europe, clothed with a heavy mane, and likewise destitute of bisantlers. We believe this species to be the soegur of Asiatic Turkey, and mara of the Arabs, and therefore residing on the borders of the mountain forests of Syria and Palestine. One or both of these species were dedicated to the local bona dea on Mount Libanus a presumptive proof that deer were found in the vicinity.
Of the hind it is unnecessary to say more than that she is the female of the stag, or hart, and that in the manners of these animals the males are always the last to hurry into cover. SEE STAG.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Deer
DEER.See Fallow-deer, Hart.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Deer
der (, ‘ayyal, feminine , ‘ayyalah, and , ‘ayyeleth (compare Arabic, ‘ayyal and ‘iyal, deer and , ‘ayil, ram, and Latin caper and capra, goat, caprea, capreolus, wild goat, chamois, or roe deer); , yahmur (compare Arabic, yahmur, deer); , yaalah, feminine of , yael (compare Arabic, wal, Pers wild goat); , cebh, and feminine , cebhyah (compare Arabic, zabi and feminine zabyah, gazelle; , opher (compare Arabic, ghafr and ghufr, young of the mountain goat)):
Of the words in the preceding list, the writer believes that only the first two, i.e. ‘ayyal (with its feminine forms) and yahmur should be translated deer, ‘ayyal for the roe deer and yahmur for the fallow deer. Further, he believes that yael (including yaalah) should be translated ibex, and cebh, gazelle. Opher is the young of a roe deer or of a gazelle.
‘Ayyal and its feminine forms are regularly in English Versions of the Bible rendered hart and hind, terms which are more commonly applied to the male and female of the red deer, Cervus elaphus, which inhabits Great Britain, the continent of Europe, the Caucasus and Asia Minor, but which has never been reported as far south as Syria or Palestine. The roe deer, Capreolus caprea, however, which inhabits the British Isles, the greater part of Europe, the Caucasus and Persia, is certainly found in Palestine. The museum of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirt possesses the skeleton of a roe deer which was shot in the mountains near Tyre. As late as 1890 it was fairly common in southern Lebanon and Carmel, but has now (1912) become very scarce. The fallow deer, Cervus dama, is a native of Northern Africa and countries about the Mediterranean. It is found in central Europe and Great Britain, where it has been introduced from its more southern habitat. A variety of the fallow deer, sometimes counted as a separate species under the name of Cervus Mesopotamicus, inhabits northeastern Mesopotamia and Persia. It may in former times have been found in Palestine, and Tristram reports having seen the fallow deer in Galilee (Fauna and Flora of Pal), but while Tristram was a remarkably acute observer, he appears sometimes to have been too readily satisfied, and his observations, when unaccompanied, as in this case, by specimens, are to be accepted with caution. Now ‘ayyal (and its feminine forms) occurs in the Bible 22 times, while yahmur occurs only twice, i.e. in the list of clean animals in Deu 14:5, and in 1Ki 4:23, in the list of animals provided for Solomon’s table. In both places the King James Version has fallow deer and the Revised Version (British and American) roebuck. In view of the fact that the roe deer has within recent years been common in Palestine, while the occurrence of the fallow deer must be considered doubtful, it seems fair to render ‘ayyal roe deer or roebuck, leaving yahmur for fallow deer.
The Arabs call the roe deer both ‘ayyal and wal. Wal is the proper name of the Persian wild goat, Capra aegagrus, and is also often used for the Arabic or Sinaitic ibex, Capra beden, though only by those who do not live within its range. Where the ibex is at home it is always called beden. This looseness of nomenclature must be taken into account, and we have no reason to suppose that the Hebrews were more exact than are the Arabs. There are many examples of this in English, e.g. panther, coney, rabbit (in America), locust, adder and many others.
Yael (including yaalah) occurs 4 times. In Job 39:1; Psa 104:18; 1Sa 24:2, English Versions of the Bible render yael by wild goat. For yaalah in Pro 5:19, the King James Version has roe, while the Revised Version (British and American) has doe, which is non-committal, since the name, doe, may be applied to the female of a deer or of an ibex. Since the Arabic, wal, which is etymologically closely akin to yael, means the Persian wild goat, it might be supposed that that animal was meant, were it not that it inhabits the plains of the Syrian desert, and not the mountains of Southern Palestine, where the ibex lives. At least two of the passages clearly indicate the latter locality, i.e. Psa 104:18 : The high mountains are for the wild goats, and 1Sa 24:2 : Saul … went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats. The conclusion then seems irresistible that yael, and consequently yaalah, is the ibex.
Cebh (including cebhyah) is uniformly rendered roe or roebuck in the King James Version, while the Revised Version (British and American), either in the text or in the margin, has in most cases gazelle. In two places roe is retained in the Revised Version (British and American) without comment, i.e. 2Sa 2:18 : Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe, and 1Ch 12:8 : were as swift as the roes upon the mountains. ‘Ayyal and cebh occur together in Deu 12:15, Deu 12:22; Deu 14:5; Deu 15:22; 1Ki 4:23; Son 2:9, Son 2:17, i.e. in 7 of the 16 passages in which we find cebh. If therefore it be accepted that ‘ayyal is the roe deer, it follows that cebh must be something else. Now the gazelle is common in Palestine and satisfies perfectly every passage in which we find cebh. Further, one of the Arabic names of the gazelle is zabi, a word which is etymologically much nearer to cebh than appears in this transliteration.
Opher is akin to aphar, dust, and has reference to the color of the young of the deer or gazelle, to both of which it is applied. In Son 2:9, Son 2:17 and Son 8:14, we have opher ha-‘ayyalm, English Versions of the Bible young hart, literally, fawn of the roe deer. In Son 4:5 and Son 7:3, we have opharm te’ome cebhyah, the King James Version young roes that are twins, the Revised Version (British and American) fawns that are twins of a roe, the Revised Version, margin gazelle (for roe). For further reference to these questions, see ZOOLOGY.
With the exception of mere lists of animals, as in Dt 14 and 1 Ki 4, the treatment of these animals is highly poetical, and shows much appreciation of their grace and beauty.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Deer
See FALLOW DEER.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Deer
Called also Fallow Deer, Hart, Hind, Roebuck.
Designated among the clean animals, to be eaten
Deu 12:15; Deu 14:5
Provided for Solomon’s household
1Ki 4:23
Fleetness of
2Sa 2:18; 1Ch 12:8; Pro 6:5; Son 8:14; Isa 35:6
Surefootedness of
2Sa 22:34
Gentleness of
Pro 5:19
Coloring of
Jer 14:5
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Deer
Deer. See Fallow-Deer.