English 
Chinese 
Dutch 
Arabic 
Spanish 
Portuguese 
Russian 
French 
Italian 
German 
Japanese 
Continue reading with a subscription
Get unlimited access to all our premium content and exclusive features.
Enjoy unlimited access, cancel anytime.
Summary
- The owl in Scripture is not wise. It is lonely, and it lives where people used to. The wise owl is Greek — the bird of Athena.
- Owls appear first in the unclean bird lists (Leviticus 11:16-17), among the birds of prey and scavengers.
- They belong to the vocabulary of desolation: Isaiah 34:11-15 puts them in a ruined Edom, and Zephaniah 2:14 roosts them on the columns of fallen Nineveh.
- Psalm 102:6-7 is the verse that earns the article: “like an owl among the ruins… like a bird alone on a roof” — the creature that is awake when nobody else is.
- Where Scripture wants wisdom it does not reach for a bird. Proverbs 8:1-3 personifies it as a woman calling aloud in the street.
Bibliography (Click to show)
Sources: Scripture quotations from the NIV via BibleGateway (Leviticus 11:16-17; 19:26; Isaiah 34:11, 15; Zephaniah 2:14; Psalm 102:6-7, 12; Proverbs 8:1-3; Genesis 40:8; Daniel 2:27-28). Translators’ disagreement over the bird names in Leviticus 11 is noted in the footnotes of most modern versions. The owl of Athena appears on Athenian tetradrachms from the fifth century BC.
Leave a Reply