Dove, Turtle

The dove and the turtledove run across the canon as one creature put to many uses. The same bird that brings Noah back the olive-leaf is the bird the poor woman lifts in place of a lamb, the bird sold by the cage-load in the temple court, the bird whose voice wakes the spring in Songs, the bird whose wings the psalmist envies when he wants to flee, and the bird whose form the Spirit takes when it descends on Jesus at the Jordan. The literal bird carries liturgical weight, marital tenderness, prophetic complaint, and a christological sign.

The Dove from the Ark

The first appearance is Noah's reconnaissance. "And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground" (Gen 8:8); "but the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned to him to the ark; for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in to him into the ark" (Gen 8:9). Seven days later, "again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; and the dove came in to him at evening; and, look, in her mouth an olive-leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth" (Gen 8:10-11). On the third sending the bird does not return: "And he waited yet another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she did not return again to him anymore" (Gen 8:12). The dove is the post-flood messenger of habitable ground, and Scripture remembers her: in the Song the lover calls his beloved "O my dove, in the clefts of the rock" (Song 2:14), and Jeremiah, looking at Moab's coming exile, tells its inhabitants to "leave the cities, and stay in the rock; and be like the dove that makes her nest over the mouth of the abyss" (Jer 48:28).

The Sacrificial Pair

From Sinai onward the dove and the pigeon are the bird brought before Yahweh. The Abrahamic covenant cutting already pairs them: "Take me a heifer three years old, and a she-goat three years old, and a ram three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon" (Gen 15:9). Leviticus generalizes the pair into a category: "And if his oblation to Yahweh is a burnt-offering of birds, then he will offer his oblation of turtledoves, or of young pigeons" (Lev 1:14). Two are specified for the trespass-offering of the impecunious: "And if his means are not sufficient for a lamb, then he will bring his trespass-offering for that in which he has sinned, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, to Yahweh; one for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering" (Lev 5:7). The same scaling moves down a further step at Lev 5:11, where even two birds are out of reach: "But if his means are not sufficient for two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, then he will bring his oblation for that in which he has sinned, the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin-offering: he will put no oil on it, neither will he put any frankincense on it; for it is a sin-offering" (Lev 5:11).

The dove is the offering of the woman after childbirth: "And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she will bring a lamb a year old for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin-offering, to the door of the tent of meeting, to the priest" (Lev 12:6); "And if her means are not sufficient for a lamb, then she will take two turtledoves, or two young pigeons; the one for a burnt-offering, and the other for a sin-offering: and the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean" (Lev 12:8). The same paired alternative belongs to the cleansed leper: "and two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, such as he is able to get; and the one will be a sin-offering, and the other a burnt-offering" (Lev 14:22); and on the eighth day of the leper's poverty, "he will offer one of the turtledoves, or of the young pigeons, such as he is able to get" (Lev 14:30). Leviticus 15 prescribes the pair for both the man and the woman with a discharge: "And on the eighth day he will take to himself two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, and come before Yahweh to the door of the tent of meeting, and give them to the priest" (Lev 15:14); "And on the eighth day she will take to herself two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, and bring them to the priest, to the door of the tent of meeting" (Lev 15:29). The Nazirite who has been defiled by a dead body brings the same pair: "And on the eighth day he will bring two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, to the priest, to the door of the tent of meeting" (Num 6:10).

The repeating clause is "if her means are not sufficient" / "such as he is able to get." The dove is the bird the system reaches down to. It is the offering of the woman who cannot afford a lamb, the leper who cannot afford a lamb, the impecunious worshiper who has sinned in some small way, the man or woman whose body has rendered them unclean. The dove carries the law's accommodation of poverty.

The Temple Market

By the gospels the same accommodation has hardened into a trade. The bird that the law named to spare the poor is now stocked, caged, and sold for a price beside the changers' tables. "And he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting" (John 2:14); "and to those who sold the doves he said, Take these things from here; don't make my Father's house a house of merchandise" (John 2:16). Mark gives the action the same way: "And they come to Jerusalem: and he entered into the temple, and began to cast out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of those who sold the doves" (Mark 11:15). Jesus's specific gesture against the dove-sellers reaches to the bird the Levitical code earmarked for the poor; the seats overturned are the seats from which the poorest worshipers were being charged at the door of the sacrifice the Law had set aside for them.

The Spirit at the Jordan

The dove returns with theophanic weight at Jesus's baptism. Mark: "And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens rent apart, and the Spirit as a dove descending on him" (Mark 1:10). Luke specifies the bodily appearance: "and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form, as a dove, on him, and a voice came out of heaven, You are my chosen Son; in you I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22). John's witness fixes it as visible and abiding: "And John bore witness, saying, I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven; and it stayed on him" (John 1:32). The bird the law gave to the poor and the bird Noah sent across the receding waters now alights, in visible form, on the Son.

Wings of a Dove

The psalmist envies the bird's flight. "And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then I would fly away, and stay at rest" (Ps 55:6). Another psalm sees plundered Israel as a dove gleaming in the sun: "When you⁺ lie among the sheepfolds, [It is as] the wings of a dove covered with silver, And her pinions with yellow gold" (Ps 68:13). A psalm-superscription names the tune: "For the Chief Musician; set to The Silent Dove - Those Far Away. [A Psalm] of David. Michtam: when the Philistines took him in Gath" (Ps 56:1). The bird's value to the prayer of the poor returns in the petition, "Oh don't deliver the soul of your turtledove to the wild beast: Don't forget the life of your poor forever" (Ps 74:19) — Israel before Yahweh as a turtledove that must not be given to a predator.

Isaiah's restoration vision pictures the returning exiles as homing doves: "Who are these who fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?" (Isa 60:8). Hosea uses the same flight to describe deliverance from Assyria: "They will come trembling as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria; and I will make them to dwell in their houses, [my Speech in their support,] says Yahweh" (Hos 11:11).

The Dove's Voice

The voice of the dove is, in Scripture, two-toned. It is the announcer of spring in Songs: "The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing [of birds] has come, And the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land" (Song 2:12). And it is the sound of grief everywhere else. Hezekiah on his sickbed: "Like a swallow [or] a crane, so I chattered; I moaned as a dove; my eyes fail [with looking] upward: O Lord, I am oppressed, be my surety" (Isa 38:14). Israel without justice: "We roar all like bears, and moan intensely like doves: we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us" (Isa 59:11). Ezekiel's survivors: "But the ones of those who escape will escape, and will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, everyone in his iniquity" (Ezek 7:16). Nineveh's captive women: "And he is drawn up, she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her female slaves moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts" (Nah 2:7). Jeremiah turns the bird's seasonal punctuality against Israel: "Yes, the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don't know the law of Yahweh" (Jer 8:7).

The Lover's Dove

Songs uses the dove repeatedly as the language of beauty and mutual delight. "Look, you are beautiful, my love; Look you are beautiful; Your eyes are doves" (Song 1:15). "Look, you are beautiful, my love; look, you are beautiful; Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, That lie along the side of mount Gilead" (Song 4:1). "His eyes are like doves beside the water-brooks, Washed with milk, [and] fitly set" (Song 5:12). The beloved is the dove herself: "O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, In the covert of the steep place, Let me see your countenance, Let me hear your voice; For sweet is your voice, and your countenance is comely" (Song 2:14); "I was asleep, but my heart awoke: It is the voice of my beloved who knocks, [saying,] Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; For my head is filled with dew, My locks with the drops of the night" (Song 5:2); "My dove, my undefiled, is [but] one; She is the only one of her mother; She is the choice one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed; [Yes,] the queens and the concubines, and they praised her" (Song 6:9).

The Silly Dove

Hosea reverses the sweetness with a single line about Israel's foreign policy. "And Ephraim is like a silly dove, without understanding: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria" (Hos 7:11). The bird that homes faithfully in Isaiah 60 here flutters from one threat to another with no center.

Famine in Samaria

A grimmer note: during Ben-hadad's siege of Samaria the bird's name marks a market rate, not flight. "And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, look, they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for 80 [shekels] of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five [shekels] of silver" (2 Kgs 6:25). The poor man's offering and the temple-court trade in doves both presuppose live birds; the siege has reduced even the droppings to currency.