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Japanese Yes, in most modern translations, though not in the King James Version. The English Standard Version lists “the falcon of any kind” among the birds Israel was not to eat (Leviticus 11:14), and several versions speak of “the falcon’s eye” in Job 28:7. No one is sure which birds the Hebrew names meant, so the translations differ.
Job’s poem is a search for wisdom, and it borrows a bird known for its sight: “That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has not seen it” (Job 28:7). The falcon looks down on the whole land from above, and still it has never seen this road. The poem keeps searching, and at last it finds the one who knows the way.
Where is the falcon mentioned in the Bible?
The falcon appears in three kinds of passages. Two are the lists of unclean birds in Leviticus 11:13–19 and Deuteronomy 14:12–18, which name about twenty birds, among them the eagle, the raven, several owls and the bat. The third is Job 28, a poem about the search for wisdom, which says of the hidden path to it, “That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has not seen it” (Job 28:7). The New International Version also has falcons nesting in the ruins of Edom in Isaiah 34:15.
The same Hebrew words come out differently from one version to the next:
| Verse | King James Version | English Standard Version | New International Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leviticus 11:14 | “the vulture, and the kite after his kind” | “the kite, the falcon of any kind” | “the red kite, any kind of black kite” |
| Deuteronomy 14:13 | “the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind” | “the kite, the falcon of any kind” | “the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon” |
| Job 28:7 | “the vulture’s eye” | “the falcon’s eye” | “no falcon’s eye” |
| Isaiah 34:15 | “the vultures” | “the hawks” | “the falcons” |
The New American Standard Bible, the New Living Translation and the Christian Standard Bible also have “falcon” in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition uses the word only in Job 28:7, and the King James Version never uses it.
Which Hebrew word means falcon?
No Hebrew word can be matched with certainty to the falcon. The word most often translated “falcon” is ayyah, which the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon defines as “hawk, falcon, kite,” perhaps named from its cry, and treats as a general term; in Job 28:7 it notes that the bird is “keen-sighted.” The King James Version renders the same word “kite” twice and “vulture” once. Two related words are just as uncertain: the lexicon glosses da’ah as “a bird of prey, possibly kite,” and Strong’s concordance defines dayyah as “a falcon,” though the King James Version translates it “vulture.” Another word, nets, which English Bibles translate “hawk,” is described in the same lexicon as “a bird of prey, generic name, including hawk and falcon”; it is the bird of Job 39:26, “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south?”
The translators themselves mark the identifications as uncertain. The English Standard Version notes that “the identity of many of these birds is uncertain,” the New International Version that “the precise identification of some of the birds, insects and animals in this chapter is uncertain,” and the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition that the “identification of several of the birds” is uncertain.
Why was the falcon unclean?
Leviticus does not give a reason for each bird. Many of the birds named, as far as they can be identified, are birds of prey or carrion eaters, but the text itself explains the food laws as a whole as a mark of Israel’s holiness: “For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44).
What does the falcon symbolize in the Bible?
The Bible gives the falcon no symbolic meaning of its own. Job 28 uses its sharp sight to make a point about wisdom: even the keen-eyed falcon has not seen the way to it. The poem asks, “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” (Job 28:12), and answers, “God understands the way to it, and he knows its place” (Job 28:23).
Christian art later gave the falcon two meanings. George Ferguson’s Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (1954) explains that “there are two kinds of falcons in religious symbolism: the wild and the domestic. The wild falcon symbolized evil thought or action, while the domestic falcon represented the holy man, or the Gentile converted to the Christian faith.” Because the tame falcon was the favorite hunting bird of the Renaissance, painters often showed one held by a page in the company of the Magi.
Is seeing a falcon a sign from God?
The Bible does not treat birds as omens, and it forbids interpreting omens of any kind. The law says, “You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes” (Leviticus 19:26), and Deuteronomy 18:10–12 lists anyone who “practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens” among those who are “an abomination to the Lord.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “all forms of divination are to be rejected,” naming the “interpretation of omens and lots” among them (2116). Seeing a falcon, like seeing any other bird, carries no message in Christian teaching. What the falcon gives us is Job’s picture: a bird that sees farther than we can, and a path even it has not found, known all along to the God who “understands the way to it” (Job 28:23).
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