Heron
Heron
(אֲנָפָה, anaphah', Le 11:19; De 14:18), an unclean bird, for which the kite, woodcock, curlew, peacock, parrot, crane, lapwing, and several others have been suggested. But most of these are not found in Palestine, and others have been identified with different Hebrew words. The root אָנָŠ, anaph', signifies to breathe, to snort, especially from anger, and thence, figuratively, to be angry (Gesenius, Thes. Heb. p. 127). Parkhurst observes that "as the heron is remarkable for its angry disposition, especially when hurt or wounded, this bird seems to be most probably intended." But this equally applies to a great number of different species of birds, and would be especially appropriate to the goose, which hisses at the slightest provocation. The heron, though not constantly hissing, can utter a similar sound of displeasure with much meaning, and the common species, Ardea cinerea, is found in Egypt, and is also abundant in the Hauran of Palestine, where it frequents the margins of lakes and pools, and the reedy water courses in the deep ravines, striking and devouring an immense quantity of fish. The herons are wading birds, peculiarly irritable, remarkable for their voracity; frequenting marshes and oozy rivers, and spread over the regions of the East. Most of the species enumerated 2. English ornithology have been recognized in the vicinity of Palestine, and we may include all these under the term in question- "the anaphah after his kind." One of the commonest species in Asia is Ardea russata which is beautifully adorned with plumage partly white and partly of a rich orange-yellow, while the beak, legs, and all the naked parts of the skin are yellow. Its height is about seventeen inches. This is the caboga, or cow-heron so abundant in India. Several kinds of heron, one of which, from its form, would serve well enough to represent this little golden egret, are commonly depicted on those Egyptian paintings in which the subject-a favorite one-is the fowling and fishing among the paper-reeds of the Nile.
Bochart supposes that anaphah may mean the mountain falcon, called cavorala by Homer (Odgs. 1, 320), because of the similarity of the Greek word to the Hebrew. But if it meant any kind of eagle or hawk, it would probably have been reckoned with one or other of those species mentioned in the preceding verses. Perhaps, under all the circumstances, the traditional meaning is most likely to be correct, which we will therefore trace. The Talmudists evidently were at a loss, for they describe it indefinitely as a "high-flying bird of prey" (Chulin, 63 a).
The Septuagint renders the Hebrew word by χαραδριός. This rendering, however, has been thought to lose what little weight it might otherwise have had from the probability that it originated in a false reading, viz. aguphah, which the translators connected with ayctph, "a bank." Jerome adhered to the same word ill a Latin form, caradrym and caradrium. The Greek and Roman writers, from the earliest antiquity, refer to a bird which they call charadrius. It is particularly described by Aristotle (Hist. An. 7, 7), and by Elian (Hist. An. 15, 26). The latter derives its name from xapcApa, a hollow or chasm, especially one which contains water, because, he says, the bird frequents such places. It is, moreover, certain that by the Romans the charadrius was also called icterus, which signifies the jaundice, from a notion that patients affected with that disease were cured by looking at this bird, which was of a yellow color (Pliny, 34; Coel. Aurel. 3, 5), and by the Greeks, χλωρίων; and in allusion to the same fabulous notion, ἴκτιρος (Aristotle, Hist. An. 9, 13, 15, and 22; AElian, Hist. An. 4:47). These writers concur in describing a bird, sometimes of a yellow color, remarkable for its voracity (from which circumstance arose the phrase χαραδριοῦ βίος, applied to a glutton), migratory, inhabiting watery places, and especially mountain torrents and valleys. Now it is certain that the name charadrius has been applied by ornithologists to the same species of birds from ancient times down to the present age. Linnus, under Order IV (consisting of vaders or shore birds), places the genus Charadrius, in which he includes all the numerous species of plovers. The ancient accounts may be advantageously compared with the following description of the genus from Mr. Selby's British Ornithology, 2, 230: "The members of this genus are numerous, and possess a wide geographical distribution, species being found in every quarter of the globe. They visit the East about April. Some of them, during the greater part of the year, are the inhabitants of open districts and wide wastes, frequenting both dry and moist situations, and only retire toward the coasts during the severity of winter. Others are continually resident upon the banks and about the mouths of rivers (particularly where the shore consists of small gravel or shingle). They live on worms, insects, and their larva? The flesh of many that live on the coasts is unpalatable." The same writer describes one "species, Charadrius pluvialis, called the golden plover from its color," and mentions the well-known fact that this species, in the course of molting, turns completely black. Analogous facts respecting the charadrius have been established by observations in every part of the globe, viz. that they are gregarious and migratory. The habits of the majority are littoral. They obtain their food along the banks of rivers and the shores of lakes; "like the gulls, they beat the moist soil with their pattering feet, to terrify the incumbent worms, yet are often found in deserts, in green and sedgy meadows, or on upland moors." Their food consists chiefly of mice, worms, caterpillars, insects, toads, and frogs, which of course places them among the class of birds ceremonially unclean. On the whole, the evidence seems in favor of the conclusion that the Hebrew word anaphah designates the numerous species of the plover (may not this be the genus of birds alluded to as the fowls of the mountain, Psalm I, II; Isa 18:6?). Various species of the genus are known in Syria and Palestine as the C. pluvialis (golden plover), C. aedicnemus (stone curlew), and C. spinosus (lapwing). (Kitto's Physical History of Palestine, p. 106.) In connection with some of the preceding remarks, it is important to observe that in these species a yellow color is more or less marked.
