Isaiah 34:15

15 There shall the arrow-snake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow; there also shall the vultures be gathered one with another.

Isaiah 34:15 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 34:15

There shall the great owl make her nest
Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, say that "kippoz" here is the same with "kippod", rendered "bittern" in ( Isaiah 34:11 ) but Aben Ezra takes them to be two different birds; it is hard to say what is designed by it. Bochart thinks that one kind of serpent is here meant, so called from its leaping up, and which may be said to make nests, lay eggs and hatch them, as follows:

and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow;
lay its eggs, sit upon them, and hatch them; or "break" them ^F21, that is, the eggs, by sitting on them, when the young ones spring out of them; and then being hatched, and running about, gather them under their wing, especially when in any danger:

there shall the vultures also be gathered, everyone with her mate;
which creatures usually gather together where dead carcasses lie.

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 (heqby) "et scindet", Pagninus, Montanus; "rumpet", Vatablus; "quumque eruperit", Junius & Tremellius, i.e. "pullities", so Ben Melech.

Isaiah 34:15 In-Context

13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in her fortresses; and it shall be a dwelling-place of wild dogs, a court for ostriches.

14 And there shall the beasts of the desert meet with the jackals, and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; the lilith also shall settle there, and find for herself a place of rest.

15 There shall the arrow-snake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow; there also shall the vultures be gathered one with another.

16 Search ye in the book of Jehovah and read: not one of these shall fail, one shall not have to seek for the other; for my mouth, it hath commanded, and his Spirit, it hath gathered them.

17 For he himself hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them with the line: they shall possess it for ever; from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.