Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom,.... With so much swiftness, steadiness, and constancy, until she has seized her prey. The Vulgate Latin version and some others read, "does she become feathered", or "begin to have feathers?" and so Bochart: either when first fledged; or when, as it is said d she casts her old feathers and gets new ones, and this every year. Now neither her flight nor her feathers, whether at one time or the other, are owing to men, but to the Lord, who gives both;
[and] stretch her wings towards the south? Being a bird of passage, she moves from colder climates towards the winter, and steers her course to the south towards warmer ones e; which she does by an instinct in nature, put into her by the Lord, and not through the instruction of man. Or, as some say, casting off her old feathers, she flies towards the south for warmth; and that her feathers may be cherished with the heat, and grow the sooner and better. Hence it is, perhaps, as Aelianus reports f, that this bird was by the Egyptians consecrated to Apollo or the sun; it being able to look upon the rays of it wistly, constantly, and easily, without being hurt thereby. Porphyry g says, that this bird is not only acceptable to the sun; but has divinity in it, according to the Egyptians; and is no other than Osiris, or the sun represented by the image of it h. Strabo i speaks of a city of the hawks, where this creature is worshipped. It has its name in Greek from the sacredness of it; and according to Hesiod k, is very swift, and has large wings. It is called ωκυπτερος, swift in flying, by Manetho l; and by Homer, ωκιστος πετεηνων, the swiftest of fowls m. It has its name from נצה, to "fly", as Kimchi observes n. Cyril of Jerusalem, on the authority of the Greek version, affirms o, that by a divine instinct or order, the hawk, stretching out its wings, stands in the midst of the air unmoved, looking towards the south. All accounts show it to be a bird that loves warmth, which is the reason of the expression in the text.
d Aelian. de Animal. l. 12. c. 4. e Ibid. l. 2. c. 43. Plin. l. 10. c. 8. f De Animal. l. 7. c. 9. & l. 10. c. 14. g De Abstinentia, l. 4. s. 9. h Kircher. Prodrom. Copt. p. 232. i Geograph. l. 17. p. 562. k Opera & Dies, l. 1. v. 208. l Apotelesm. l. 5. v. 176. m Iliad. 15. v. 238. Odyss 13. v. 87. n Sepher Shorash. rad. נצה. o Cateches. 9. s. 6.