As might be expected, we come upon it among the number of the beasts which divided the hoof and chewed the cud, and were specially indicated as fit for food; see Deut. xii. 15: "Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, ... the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck, and as of the hart."
There is, however, an earlier mention of the word in Gen. xlix. 21. It occurs in that splendid series of imagery in which Jacob blesses his sons, and prophesies their future, each image serving ever afterwards as the emblem of the tribe: "Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words;"—or, according to the Jewish Bible, "Naphtali is a hind sent forth: he giveth sayings of pleasantness." Now, such an image as this would never have been used, had not the spectacle of the "hind let loose" been perfectly familiar to the eyes both of the dying patriarch and his hearers, and equally so with the lion, the ass, the vine, the serpent, and other objects used emblematically in the same prophetic poem.
The excellence of the Hart's flesh is shown by its occurrence among the animals used for King Solomon's table; see 1 Kings iv. 23, a passage which has been quoted several times, and therefore need only be mentioned.
Allusion is made to the speed and agility of the Deer in several passages. See, for example, Isa. xxxv. 6: "Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing." Again, in 2 Sam. xxii. 33, 34: "God is my strength and power: and He maketh my way perfect.
"He maketh my feet like hinds' feet: and setteth me upon my high places."
Nearly four hundred years afterwards we find Habakkuk using precisely the same image, evidently quoting David's Psalm of Thanksgiving:—"Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
"The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places." (iii. 18, 19.)
A passage of a similar character may be found in Solomon's Song, ii. 8, 9: "The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.
"My beloved is like a roe or a young hart."
There is one passage in the Psalms which is familiar to us in many ways, and not the least in that it has been chosen as the text for so many well-known anthems. "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.