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Summary
- No major English translation of the Bible names the woodpecker.
- Leviticus 11:13–19 and Deuteronomy 14:11–18 list the unclean birds; the nearest candidate is the dukhifat of Leviticus 11:19.
- Most modern Bibles translate dukhifat “hoopoe,” the King James Version “lapwing” and the Douay-Rheims “houp”; the Brown–Driver–Briggs lexicon says “perhaps hoopoe.”
- Targum Onkelos renders the word naggar tura, “carpenter of the mountain,” which Jastrow glosses “wood-cock,” and the Talmud explains it with a legend about splitting mountains (Gittin 68b).
- The Syrian woodpecker lives in the region and was first described from a specimen collected on Mount Lebanon.
- Scripture gives the woodpecker no symbolic meaning.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations from the English Standard Version (Genesis 8:8–12; Exodus 16:13; Leviticus 11:13–19; Deuteronomy 14:11–18; 1 Kings 17:4–6; Job 39:13–18; Isaiah 40:31; Jeremiah 8:7; Matthew 10:29; 26:34; Luke 12:24), the King James Version (Leviticus 11:19) and the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (Leviticus 11:19). https://www.biblegateway.com/
- F. Brown, S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, entry “דּוּכִיפַת,” via Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/
- Targum Onkelos, Leviticus 11:19, via Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Onkelos_Leviticus.11.19
- Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, entry for naggar tura, via Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/
- Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 68b, William Davidson Edition, via Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/Gittin.68b
- Wikipedia, “Eurasian hoopoe.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_hoopoe
- Wikipedia, “Syrian woodpecker.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_woodpecker
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