Isaiah 34:15

15 There the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate.

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 Her towers will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She will become a haunt for jackals, an abode for ostriches.

14 The desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and one wild goat will call to another. There the night creature will settle and find her place of repose.

15 There the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate.

16 Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of these will go missing, not one will lack her mate, because He has ordered it by His mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit.

17 He has allotted their portion; His hand has distributed it by measure. They will possess it forever; they will dwell in it from generation to generation.