Are Peacocks in the Bible? Yes, Among Solomon’s Imports, Though Some Read Baboons

Yes, in most translations. Most English Bibles, from the King James Version on, say that Solomon’s ships brought “apes, and peacocks” (1 Kings 10:22; 2 Chronicles 9:21), though the Hebrew word is uncertain and the New International Version reads “baboons.” The King James also has peacocks in Job 39:13, where modern versions have the ostrich.

Where are peacocks mentioned in the Bible?

Peacocks come into the Bible as part of King Solomon’s wealth. Solomon built a fleet at Ezion-geber on the Red Sea, and Hiram, king of Tyre, sent experienced seamen to sail it with Solomon’s servants; they went to Ophir and brought back 420 talents of gold (1 Kings 9:26–28). A later verse describes a regular trade: “For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks” (1 Kings 10:22). The next verse sums up the point: “Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom” (1 Kings 10:23). Second Chronicles 9:21 repeats the list.

The English Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition and the New Living Translation all print “peacocks” with a note offering “baboons” instead. The New American Standard Bible has “monkeys, and peacocks” in 1 Kings. The New International Version has “apes and baboons” in both passages, and the French Louis Segond Bible has “des singes et des paons,” apes and peacocks. The New American Bible, Revised Edition keeps “peacocks” but notes that “the Hebrew words are obscure and the translations conjectural; however, the reference is certainly to exotic luxury items.”

Peacocks or baboons?

The Hebrew word, tukkiyyim, occurs only in these two verses. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew lexicon translates it “peacocks,” following Jerome and the rabbis, and compares the Malabar word tôgai, “peacock.” The Indian peafowl is native to the Indian subcontinent, and the Greek name for the bird, taos, came through Persian from the Tamil word tokei.

The choice depends partly on where Ophir was. Claude Mariottini, emeritus professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Seminary, explains that the Jewish historian Josephus first identified Ophir with India, which suits peacocks. William F. Albright placed Ophir in Africa and took tukkiyyim as an Egyptian loanword meaning “monkey,” and “most Bibles that translate the word thukkiyyîm as ‘baboons’ follow Albright’s view.” Mariottini concludes that scholars still do not agree on the meaning.

Are there peacocks in the Book of Job?

Only in the King James Version. There, in God’s speech about the animals, the verse reads, “Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?” (Job 39:13). Modern translations read the verse as a description of the ostrich alone: “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love?” The English Standard Version notes that “the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.” The Hebrew word, renanim, is defined by Brown-Driver-Briggs as a “bird of piercing cries, i.e. ostrich,” and the verses that follow fit the ostrich: she “leaves her eggs to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground,” and “she laughs at the horse and his rider” (Job 39:14, 18).

What does the peacock symbolize in Christianity?

Scripture gives the peacock no symbolic meaning; it appears only among Solomon’s luxuries. The symbolism came later. Early Christian paintings and mosaics often show the peacock, and a pair of peacocks drinking from a vase became a symbol of the Eucharist and the resurrection, the believer drinking from the waters of eternal life.

Augustine wrote about the peacock’s flesh in The City of God (book 21, chapter 4). He asked, “For who but God the Creator of all things has given to the flesh of the peacock its antiseptic property?” He had tested the claim at Carthage by keeping a slice of breast from a cooked peacock: “after it had been laid by for thirty days and more, it was still in the same state; and a year after, the same still, except that it was a little more shrivelled, and drier.” Augustine used the example to argue that bodies in hell can burn without being consumed.

Related reading

• What does ivory mean in the Bible?
• Feathers in the Bible
• Did Solomon go to heaven?