Isaiah 34:15

15 there an urchin had ditches, and nourished out whelps (there a hedge-hog had dens, and nourished whelps), and digged about, and fostered in the shadow thereof; there kites were gathered together, one to 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.

---

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 and nettles shall grow in the houses thereof, and a teasel in the strongholds thereof; and it shall be the couch of dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.

14 And fiends, and wonderful beasts, like men in the higher part, and like asses in the nether part, and an hairy, shall meet; one shall cry to another. Lamia shall lie there, and find rest there to herself; (And fiends, and wonderful beasts, like men in the higher part, and like donkeys in the lower part, and hairy all over, shall meet; and one shall cry to the other. The lamia shall lie down there, and shall find rest there for herself;)

15 there an urchin had ditches, and nourished out whelps (there a hedge-hog had dens, and nourished whelps), and digged about, and fostered in the shadow thereof; there kites were gathered together, one to another.

16 Seek ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and read ye; one of those things failed not, one sought not (in vain for) another; for he commanded that thing, that goeth forth of my mouth, and his spirit, he gathered them together. (Seek ye diligently in the Book of the Lord, and read ye; not one of them shall fail, not one shall seek in vain for another; for he hath commanded it with his mouth, and with his breath, he hath brought them together.)

17 And he sent to them (the) heritage (And he gave them their inheritance), and his hand parted it in measure; till into without end they shall wield that land, in generation and into generation they shall dwell therein.