Heron
HERON
This name is put in Lev 11:19 Deu 14:18, for a Hebrew word of very uncertain meaning. See BIRDS.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Heron
Heron. The Bible mentions herons only in the lists of unclean birds (Lev 11:19; Deu 14:18). Several species of herons and egrets made their home in Palestine. Egyptian carvings picture herons and their nests among the reeds of marshes and lakes.
A tall, graceful bird, the heron flies with its neck curled and its long legs stretched out behind. The heron eats fish, frogs, and small reptiles, which it spears swiftly with a long, sharp beak.
Fuente: Plants Animals Of Bible
Heron
(, anaphah’, Lev 11:19; Deu 14:18), an unclean bird, for which the kite, woodcock, curlew, peacock, parrot, crane, lapwing, and several others have been suggested. But most of these are not found in Palestine, and others have been identified with different Hebrew words. The root , anaph’, signifies to breathe, to snort, especially from anger, and thence, figuratively, to be angry (Gesenius, Thes. Heb. p. 127). Parkhurst observes that as the heron is remarkable for its angry disposition, especially when hurt or wounded, this bird seems to be most probably intended. But this equally applies to a great number of different species of birds, and would be especially appropriate to the goose, which hisses at the slightest provocation. The heron, though not constantly hissing, can utter a similar sound of displeasure with much meaning, and the common species, Ardea cinerea, is found in Egypt, and is also abundant in the Hauran of Palestine, where it frequents the margins of lakes and pools, and the reedy water courses in the deep ravines, striking and devouring an immense quantity of fish. The herons are wading birds, peculiarly irritable, remarkable for their voracity; frequenting marshes and oozy rivers, and spread over the regions of the East. Most of the species enumerated 2. English ornithology have been recognized in the vicinity of Palestine, and we may include all these under the term in question- the anaphah after his kind. One of the commonest species in Asia is Ardea russata which is beautifully adorned with plumage partly white and partly of a rich orange-yellow, while the beak, legs, and all the naked parts of the skin are yellow. Its height is about seventeen inches. This is the caboga, or cow-heron so abundant in India. Several kinds of heron, one of which, from its form, would serve well enough to represent this little golden egret, are commonly depicted on those Egyptian paintings in which the subject-a favorite one-is the fowling and fishing among the paper-reeds of the Nile.
Bochart supposes that anaphah may mean the mountain falcon, called cavorala by Homer (Odgs. 1, 320), because of the similarity of the Greek word to the Hebrew. But if it meant any kind of eagle or hawk, it would probably have been reckoned with one or other of those species mentioned in the preceding verses. Perhaps, under all the circumstances, the traditional meaning is most likely to be correct, which we will therefore trace. The Talmudists evidently were at a loss, for they describe it indefinitely as a high-flying bird of prey (Chulin, 63 a).
The Septuagint renders the Hebrew word by . This rendering, however, has been thought to lose what little weight it might otherwise have had from the probability that it originated in a false reading, viz. aguphah, which the translators connected with ayctph, a bank. Jerome adhered to the same word ill a Latin form, caradrym and caradrium. The Greek and Roman writers, from the earliest antiquity, refer to a bird which they call charadrius. It is particularly described by Aristotle (Hist. An. 7, 7), and by Elian (Hist. An. 15, 26). The latter derives its name from xapcApa, a hollow or chasm, especially one which contains water, because, he says, the bird frequents such places. It is, moreover, certain that by the Romans the charadrius was also called icterus, which signifies the jaundice, from a notion that patients affected with that disease were cured by looking at this bird, which was of a yellow color (Pliny, 34; Coel. Aurel. 3, 5), and by the Greeks, ; and in allusion to the same fabulous notion, (Aristotle, Hist. An. 9, 13, 15, and 22; AElian, Hist. An. 4:47). These writers concur in describing a bird, sometimes of a yellow color, remarkable for its voracity (from which circumstance arose the phrase , applied to a glutton), migratory, inhabiting watery places, and especially mountain torrents and valleys. Now it is certain that the name charadrius has been applied by ornithologists to the same species of birds from ancient times down to the present age. Linnus, under Order IV (consisting of vaders or shore birds), places the genus Charadrius, in which he includes all the numerous species of plovers. The ancient accounts may be advantageously compared with the following description of the genus from Mr. Selby’s British Ornithology, 2, 230: The members of this genus are numerous, and possess a wide geographical distribution, species being found in every quarter of the globe. They visit the East about April. Some of them, during the greater part of the year, are the inhabitants of open districts and wide wastes, frequenting both dry and moist situations, and only retire toward the coasts during the severity of winter. Others are continually resident upon the banks and about the mouths of rivers (particularly where the shore consists of small gravel or shingle). They live on worms, insects, and their larva? The flesh of many that live on the coasts is unpalatable. The same writer describes one species, Charadrius pluvialis, called the golden plover from its color, and mentions the well-known fact that this species, in the course of molting, turns completely black. Analogous facts respecting the charadrius have been established by observations in every part of the globe, viz. that they are gregarious and migratory. The habits of the majority are littoral. They obtain their food along the banks of rivers and the shores of lakes; like the gulls, they beat the moist soil with their pattering feet, to terrify the incumbent worms, yet are often found in deserts, in green and sedgy meadows, or on upland moors. Their food consists chiefly of mice, worms, caterpillars, insects, toads, and frogs, which of course places them among the class of birds ceremonially unclean. On the whole, the evidence seems in favor of the conclusion that the Hebrew word anaphah designates the numerous species of the plover (may not this be the genus of birds alluded to as the fowls of the mountain, Psalm I, II; Isa 18:6?). Various species of the genus are known in Syria and Palestine as the C. pluvialis (golden plover), C. aedicnemus (stone curlew), and C. spinosus (lapwing). (Kitto’s Physical History of Palestine, p. 106.) In connection with some of the preceding remarks, it is important to observe that in these species a yellow color is more or less marked.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Heron
(Lev. 11:19; Deut. 14:18), ranked among the unclean birds. The Hebrew name is _’anaphah_, and indicates that the bird so named is remarkable for its angry disposition. “The herons are wading-birds, peculiarly irritable, remarkable for their voracity, frequenting marshes and oozy rivers, and spread over the regions of the East.” The Ardea russeta, or little golden egret, is the commonest species in Asia.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Heron
anaphah. An unclean bird (Lev 11:19; Deu 14:18). Rather “the great plover,” thick kneed, Charadrius oedicnemus, widely spread in Europe, Asia, and N. Africa. It lives on slugs, worms, frogs, and toads (Speaker’s Commentary). But Gesenius derives it from anaph “to snort angrily,” which applies well to the heron, an irritable, voracious, bird, frequenting marshes. The addition “after her kind” implies that a genus is meant.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Heron
HERON.The Heb. word anphh designates an unclean bird (Lev 11:19, Deu 14:18), not otherwise mentioned in the Bible, but sufficiently well known to be taken as a type of a class. The occurrence of this name immediately after stork, and followed by the expression after her kind, makes it probable that the EV [Note: English Version.] rendering is correct. The heron belongs to the same group as the stork, and no fewer than six species of the genus Ardea alone are found in Palestine.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Heron
herun (, ‘anaphah; , charadrios; Latin Ardea cinerea): Herons are mentioned only in the abomination lists of Lev 11:19 (margin ibis) and Deu 14:18. They are near relatives of crane, stork, ibis and bittern. These birds, blue, white or brown, swarmed in Europe and wintered around Merom, along the Jordan, at the headwaters of the Jabbok and along its marshy bed in the dry season. Herons of Southern Africa that summered in the Holy Land loved to nest on the banks of Merom, and raise their young among the bulrushes, papyrus, reeds and water grasses, although it is their usual habit to build in large trees. The white herons were small, the blue, larger, and the brown, close to the same size. The blue were 3 1/2 ft. in length, and had a 5-ft. sweep. The beak, neck and legs constituted two-thirds of the length of the body, which is small, lean and bony, taking its appearance of size from its long loose feathers. Moses no doubt forbade these birds as an article of diet, because they ate fish and in older specimens would be tough, dark and evil smelling. The very poor of our western and southeastern coast states eat them.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Heron
Ardea Cinerea
Heron (Lev 11:19; Deu 14:18). The original word anaphahis a disputed name of an unclean bird, and which has also been translated kite, woodcock, parrot, and crane. For the first of these see Glede; the second is rare and only a momentary visitor in Palestine; the third, surely, required no prohibition where it was not a resident species, and probably not imported till the reign of Solomon; and as the crane, we have already shown it to have been likewise exotic, making only a momentary appearance, and that rarely, in Syria. If the Hebrew name be derived from a word signifying ‘to breathe short,’ or ‘to sniff through the nostrils with an irritated expression,’ the most obvious application would be to the goose, a bird not, perhaps, otherwise noticed in the Hebrew Scriptures, though it was constantly eaten in Egypt, was not held unclean by the Jews, and, at some seasons, must have frequented the lakes of Palestine. The heron, though not constantly hissing, can utter a similar sound of displeasure with much more meaning, and the common species is found in Egypt, and is also abundant in the Hauran of Palestine, where it frequents the margins of lakes and pools, and the reedy watercourses in the deep ravines, striking and devouring an immense quantity of fish.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Heron
[He’ron]
A bird that was unclean to the Israelites. The name anaphah cannot be identified, but several species of heron are found throughout Palestine, which are doubtless included because of the words ‘after her kind.’ The Ardea cinerea is a heron common in Palestine. They live upon fish, frogs, and reptiles. (R.V. margin has ‘ibis.’) Lev 11:19; Deu 14:18.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Heron
Lev 11:19 Deu 14:18
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Heron
H’eron. Lev 11:19; Deu 14:18. A common large, wading, unclean bird. Nearly all of the species known in English ornithology are found in the vicinity of Palestine. Canon Cook and others think the bird intended is the plover, (Charadrius aedicnemus), a greedy, thick kneed, high-flying migratory bird, very common in the East, on the banks of rivers and shores of lakes. — Editor.
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Heron
, Lev 11:19; Deu 14:18. This word has been variously understood. Some have rendered it the kite, others the woodcock, others the curlieu, some the peacock, others the parrot, and others the crane. The root, , signifies to breathe short through the nostrils, to snuff, as in anger; hence to be angry; and it is supposed that the word is sufficiently descriptive of the heron, from its very irritable disposition. Bochart, however, thinks it the mountain falcon; the same that the Greeks call , mentioned by Homer; and this bears a strong resemblance to the Hebrew name.