THE RAVEN.
Signification of the word Oreb—The Raven tribe plentiful in Palestine—The Raven and the Dove—Elijah and the Ravens—Various explanations of the circumstance—Feeding the young Ravens—Luis of Grenada's sermon—The white Raven of ancient times—An old legend—Reference to the blackness of the Raven's plumage—Desert-loving habits of the Raven—Its mode of attacking the eye—Notions of the old commentators—Ceremonial use of the Raven—Return of the Ravens—Cunning of the bird—Nesting-places of the Raven—The magpie and its character—The starling—Its introduction into Palestine—The Rabbi perplexed—Solution of the difficulty.
It is more than probable that, while the Hebrew word oreb primarily signifies the bird which is so familiar to us under the name of Raven, it was also used by the Jews in a much looser sense, and served to designate any of the Corvidæ, or Crow tribe, such as the raven itself, the crow, the rook, the jackdaw, and the like. We will first take the word in its restricted sense, and then devote a brief space to its more extended signification.
As might be expected from the cosmopolitan nature of the Raven, it is very plentiful in Palestine, and even at the present time is apparently as firmly established as it was in the days when the various Scriptural books were written.
There are few birds which are more distinctly mentioned in the Holy Scriptures than the Raven, though the passages in which its name occurs are comparatively few. It is the first bird which is mentioned in the Scriptures, its name occurring in Gen. viii. 7: "And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made;
"And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth."
Here we have, at the very outset, a characteristic account of the bird. It left the ark, and flew to and fro, evidently for the purpose of seeking food. The dove, which immediately followed the Raven, acted in a different manner. She flew from the ark in search of food, and, finding none, was forced to return again. The Raven, on the contrary, would find plenty of food in the bodies of the various animals that had been drowned, and were floating on the surface of the waters, and, therefore, needed not to enter again into the ark. The context shows that it made the ark a resting-place, and that it "went forth to and fro," or, as the Hebrew Bible renders the passage, "in going and returning," until the waters had subsided. Here, then, is boldly drawn the distinction between the two birds, the carrion-eater and the feeder on vegetable substances—a distinction to which allusion has already been made in the history of the dove.
THE RAVEN.
"Who provideth for the raven his food?"—Job xxxviii. 41.