Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Peter Kirk:

I suspect that the answer to this question may be connected with “brood”. 
What is the action connected with brooding? As I understand it, the parent 
settles down on its chicks and remains pretty much unmoving.

That could be the connection with Jeremiah, for his heart was shattered and 
his bones settled down (a depressed person doesn’t want to move).

Which brings back to Genesis, do we not see the pictue of the Spirit of God 
settling down on the face of the waters?

By the way, it is my understanding that sometimes hawks soar on thermals and 
updrafts, in that way be said to hover, but that eagles prefer to sit in 
trees and rocky crags and swoop down from there.

I think you may have pulled out the clue to its meaning. Thanks.

Karl W. Randolph.

> Interesting question, Karl. For what it's worth, BDB mentions a "Syr.Pa."
> cognate meaning "*move gently*, also *cherish* and *brood*".
> 
> I wonder if the problem with "hover" is that it has changed its meaning.
> Before the days of helicopters and hovercraft, what did hover? Nothing
> larger than an insect or a humming-bird could actually stay stationary in
> the air. My dictionary gives the Late Middle English sense "(Of a bird, esp.
> a hawk etc., or an insect) hang or remain suspended in the air by rapidly
> beating the wings; hang in the air with a wavering or fluttering movement.
> (Foll. by over, about.) LME."  - but can a hawk actually do this? If older
> translators had no problem using the word of an eagle, I presume that to
> them "hover" could include an eagle flying round in circles above its nest,
> with minimal wing movement. And if that is not the meaning in Deut 32:11,
> what is the meaning there?
> 
> Peter Kirk
> > 
> > To All:
> > 
> > This verb is used all of three times in Tenakh. I have been told that it
> > means to hover, or even to flutter, where does that meaning come from? Is
> > there a cognate language that elucidates its meaning?
> > 
> > It is used here of "God's Spirit", in Deuteronomy 32:11 of an eagle (a
> big,
> > heavy bird that neither hovers nor flutters) and in Jeremiah 23:9 where it
> > is used in connection with bones (again which neither hover nor flutter).
> > My experience from other languages is to look for one meaning that could
> > encompass all three uses, can it be done here?
> > 
> > Thanks again for the comments from last question.
> > 
> > Yours, Karl W. Randolph.
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