Isaiah 34:15

15 There the snake will nest and lay eggs and brood and hatch in its shadow. There too vultures 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 Thorns will grow up in its palaces, weeds and brambles in its fortresses. It will be a dwelling for jackals, a home for ostriches.

14 Wildcats will meet hyenas, the goat demon will call to his friends, and there Lilith will lurk and find her resting place.

15 There the snake will nest and lay eggs and brood and hatch in its shadow. There too vultures will gather, each with its mate.

16 Consult the LORD's scroll and read: Not one of these will be missing; none will lack its mate. God's own mouth has commanded; God's own spirit has gathered them.

17 God has cast the lot for them; God's hand allotted it to them with the measuring line. They will possess it forever; they will live in it from generation to generation.

Footnotes

• [a]. Species uncertain