VULTURE. The treatment of this word is too varied to justify listing comparisons between VSS. Three words are so tr. in the KJV, one prob. being a Heb. textual error. In the RSV four Heb. words are so tr.; in both VSS the contexts are either food lists or purely fig., giving no help in identification. See Eagle, Osprey, Ossifrage and Birds of Prey for Heb. words. Palestine has at least three resident species—black, bearded, and griffon—while the conspicuous black-and-white Egyp. vulture is a summer breeder. All are scavengers that find life more difficult in countries where civilization has brought sanitary methods of refuse disposal. The larger wild animals have become scarce and almost the only carcasses likely to become available to vultures in Pal. are those of sheep, goats, and camels which have died of disease and are not acceptable as food.

The bearded and black vultures are birds of the desert edge, where they nest on cliffs and escarpments. The griffon has a wider distribution and one long-used nesting place is in the crags above the Valley of the Doves, W of Lake of Galilee. The griffon is huge, though not the biggest of all vultures, with a length of between three and four ft. and a wing spread of roughly eight ft. It is dirty brown, with a pale, down-covered head, but color is not distinguishable as it soars on motionless wings several thousands of ft. above the ground. The Egyp. vulture is smaller, only twenty-four inches long, and easily identified, for both sexes are black and white, with bare yellow face.

It is generally agreed that Heb. נֶ֫שֶׁר, H5979, and Gr. αετός include both eagles and vultures, and that in some passages it would be better to tr. vulture; e.g. (Matthew 24:28: “there will the eagles (vultures mg.) be gathered together.” Eagles are usually solitary birds, but vultures come together in great numbers to feed. The vulture was one of the symbols of Egyp. power, which gave special point to Jehovah’s message to Israel (Exod 19:4), “I bore you on eagles’ (vultures’) wings and brought you to myself.” It was ironical that many cents. later the Jews again were taken into captivity, by the Assyrians whose god Nisroch (of the same root as Nesher) was a vulture-headed deity.

Bibliography See under Eagle.