The Hawk and its many mentions in the Bible

 One of my many friends sent me a box full of stamps, most still on paper, so I am enjoying removing the paper by soaking them, drying them and adding them to my different collections. 

The Hawk is mentioned many times in the Bible, but the one that touches me the most is Job 39:26, as it is an important part of G-d's response to Job. Basically, G-d tells Job that he doesn't know anything about how the Creator runs the world, and is given many proofs of this sad fact. One of these is the flight of the Hawk: "does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the South?"

In this passage, G-d is speaking to Job and challenging his understanding of the natural world. By using the hawk as an example, G-d emphasizes the significance of Creation, and reminds Job that it is beyond human comprehension. The hawk taking flight is a metaphor for Divine wisdom & guidance, illustrating that it is G-d ho directs & empowers His creatures!

On a totally "goofy" note, another bird is mentioned by name in the Torah in a very funny context – the Dodo bird has been extinct now for quite a while. When Moses gives the laws of redeeming land of ancestral inheritance – he mentions the uncle as one of the people who may redeem the land after it was sold. "OH DODO OH BE DODO YIG'ALEINU" – "or his uncle or cousin shall redeem it" (Leviticus 25:49). So, here is a picture of the Dodo skeleton discovered in Mauritius on a stamp from 1997. The discovery was made by Mr. George Clark in 1866 (as far as I could tell from an article he wrote in the Ibis Magazine April 1866 issue p.141)

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