Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?
Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich? - rather, 'the wing of the ostrich hen (literally, of cries: the crying-bird х rªnaaniym (H7443)]; as the Arab name for it means song: referring to its night-cries; Job 30:29; Micah 1:8) vibrates joyously. Is it not like the quill and feathers of the pious bird'-the stork? х chªciydaah (H2624)]. (Umbreit.) Rather, 'Is it like (surely not) the pious bird?' The vibrating, quivering wing, serving for sail and oar at once, is characteristic of the ostrich in full course. Its white and black feathers in the wing and tail are like the stork's. But, unlike that bird, the symbol of parental love in the East, it, with seeming want of natural (pious) affection, deserts its young. Both birds are poetically called by descriptive instead of their usual appellative names. The peacock came originally from the East Indies, and was imported into Palestine long subsequently. It is mentioned among the rarities imported from far by Solomon (1 Kings 10:22): whence it seems unlikely, though not impossible, that the bird was known to Job, in Ur, at so early a date.
Moreover, the tail, rather than the wings, would have been specified if the peacock had been meant here, the former being its chief feature of beauty.