Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

by the same ruthless conqueror: "For thus saith the Lord, Behold, he shall fly as an eagle, and shall spread his wings over Moab." In the same manner, he describes the sudden desolations of Ammon in the next chapter; but when he turns his eye to the ruins of his own country, he exclaims in still more energetic language, "Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heavens."k

Under the same comparison, the patriarch Job describes the rapid flight of time: "My days are passed away, as the eagle that hasteth to the prey;"1 no part of them remains, and no trace of them can be discovered. The surprising rapidity, with which the blessings of common providence sometimes vanish from the grasp of the possessor, is thus described by Solomon: "Riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle towards heaven."m

Supported by his powerful wings, the eagle pursues his flight for a long time, without becoming weary or fatigued; and when circumstances require it, by one continued effort, penetrates into the remotest regions." In allusion to this fact, the fabulous poets of antiquity say, that two eagles were sent down from Jove, one from the rising and the other from the setting sun, which continued their journey till they met at Delphi, or in the neighbourhood of Parnassus. The same allusion is involved in those Scriptures, which provide them with eagle's wings, that are to be removed to a great distance. Thus, the church of Christ, under the emblem of a woman, was furnished with "two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness into her place, from the face of the

J Jer. xlviii, 40.

m Prov. xxx, 19.

* Lam. iv, 19.
1 Job ix, 26.
n Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii, cap. 2, p. 171.

serpent." Her safety required a very far and rapid flight, which only the wings of a golden eagle can sustain; they are therefore selected by the prophet with admirable propriety, to waft the object of divine love and care to her appointed refuge.

The flight of this bird is as sublime, as it is rapid and impetuous. None of the feathered race soar so high; in his daring excursions, he is said to leave the clouds of heaven, and the regions of thunder, and lightning, and tempest, far beneath his feet, and to approach the very limits of æther. Hence, the prince of Grecian poets so frequently calls him the high-soaring eagle; and the ancient heathens, when they saw him cleaving the clouds with his expanded pinions, in his descent to the lower regions of the air, considered him as the special messenger of the Supreme, that reposed in his bosom, and assisted his thunder. Corresponding to this, is the celebrated oracle concerning the Athenians: Αετος εν νεφελησι γενησεαι, "Thou shalt become an eagle in the clouds." Still more beautiful and sublime are the words of Obadiah, concerning the pride and humiliation of Moab: "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord." The prophet Jeremiah pronounces the doom of Edom in similar terms; "O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill; though thou shouldst make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord: Also Edom shall be a desolation: every one that goeth by it shall be astonished."

• Rev. xii, 14.

P Apuleius, as quoted by Bochart, lib. ii, p. 170. Animal. lib. ii, cap. 26.

4 Obad. v, 4.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

-In this beautiful passage, the prophet strictly adheres to the truth of history. Esau subdued the original inhabitants of Mount Hor, and seized on its savage and romantic precipices. His descendants covered the sides of their mountains "with an endless variety of excavated tombs and private dwellings, worked out in all the symmetry and regularity of art, with colonnades and pediments, and ranges of corridors, adhering to the perpendicular surface." On the inacessible cliffs which, in some places, rise to the height of seven hundred feet, and the barren and craggy precipices, which enclose the ruins of Petra, the capital of the Nebatæi, a once powerful but now forgotten people, the eagle builds his nest, and screams for the safety of his young, when the unwelcome traveller approaches his lonely habitation. To these may be added that remarkable passage in Job, where Jehovah thus addresses the afflicted patriarch: "Doth the eagle mount up at thy command,-and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar of." She builds her nest in the most frightful precipices, from whence she darts a keen and piercing eye over the surrounding scene, and marks her prey at a great distance." These and other facts in her history, are expressed in that sublime address, with a truth and energy becoming the Creator of all things. "Doth the eagle," says Jehovah, "mount up at thy command ?" Attempts have been often made to subdue the fierce spirit of the young eagle, and train him to the chase; but with little success.

t Job xxxix, 30.

⚫ Eclectic Review, Jan. 1, 1824, p. 27, 28.
" Aristotel. Hist. lib. ix, cap. 32. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. x, cap. 3.

He

cannot be rendered so tame, gentle, and steady, that his master has not to dread his caprice, or the sudden movements of his angry passions. Man did not impart to him the desire to soar among the clouds, nor can the wisest, or the most powerful of the human race, direct his flight ; for, with a rapidity peculiar to himself, he ascends into regions far beyond the reach of the human eye, and the range of human control. Nor did he learn from man, to choose the inaccessible precipice for his abode. His vigorous frame, his daring temper, and all his instincts, are the contrivance and the work of God. The design of his Creator, in directing him to build his nest on the brow of the precipice, is obvious; there, the spoiler of the heavens, and the terror of the smaller quadrupeds, dwells alone and secure, and rears his young, almost beyond the reach and the fear of danger. The highest peak of the mountain or the cliff, is also a convenient station, from whence he marks his prey, and takes his flight; for although he has a most powerful wing, he has so little suppleness in his limbs, that he finds some difficulty in rising from the ground.

The piercing sight of this noble bird, is recorded by the philosophers, and celebrated by the poets of every age. In Homer, he has the sharpest sight among the birds of heaven :

ως τ' αετος όν ρα τε φασιν

Οξυτατον δέρκεσθαι υπερανίων πετεηνων.

Il. lib. xvii, 1. 675.

The same fact is recorded by Horace, in his Third Satire:

"tum cernis acutum,

Quam aut aquila aut serpens Epidaurius.”

So keen is the sight of the eagle, says Isidore, that, when floating with immovable wing above the deeps of the sea, far beyond the reach of human observation, he can discern

a little fish swimming below." Damir, a renowned Arabian writer quoted by Bochart, avers, that the eagle can discover a carcase at the distance of four hundred parasangs." The ancients supposed, that he is superior to thirst, and never drinks water. If the words of Jehovah in this passage, "her young ones suck up blood," do not support the opinion, they certainly do not contradict it; for he does not say they drink water, but only, they suck up blood. But the sacred text actually seems to insinuate what Ælian, and many writers of antiquity believed, that the blood of the animals upon which they prey, suffices to quench their thirst, without the aid of water. It is added, "Where the slain is there is she." On this clause, our Lord seems to have had his eye, when he said to his disciples, "Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." Natural historians, both ancient and modern, agree in the opinion, that neither the golden nor the common eagle, feeds upon carrion, but the vulture only, which is an eagle of the third species. But the words of Scripture are express: "Where the slain are, there is she." It should also be recollected, that our Lord, in the passage quoted from the evangelist, alludes to the ensigns of the Roman armies: now we know, that these figures represented, not the vulture, but the golden eagle. We must therefore conclude, that this ravenous bird does not refuse to feed upon the carcases of the slain. We are confirmed in this opinion, by one of the proverbs of Solomon, which is couched in these terms: "The eye that mocketh at his

▾ Isidorus. Orig. lib. xii, сар. 7.

Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii, cap. 2, p. 174.

* Ibid. p. 175.

" De Nat. Animal. lib. ii, cap. 26, and Buffon's Nat. Hist. vol. i, p. 52. 7 Aristotel. Hist. lib. ix, cap. 32. Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. x, cap. 3.

« VorigeDoorgaan »