Stork

The stork enters scripture in four short notices — once as an unclean bird in the dietary law, once nesting in the fir trees of the Psalter creation hymn, once as a figure of seasonal wisdom Israel has lost, and once as the wings that carry away wickedness in a prophetic vision.

Forbidden as Food

Among the unclean birds in the Levitical food law: "and the stork, the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat" (Lev 11:19). The stork is grouped with other long-legged waders and night-flying creatures.

The Stork's House in the Trees

In the creation hymn that runs through Psalm 104, the high trees are home to the stork: "Where the birds make their nests: As for the stork, her house is on their top" (Ps 104:17). The verse situates the stork at the crown of the cedars/firs, where it builds.

Knowing the Appointed Times

Jeremiah uses the stork's seasonal migration as a rebuke to a people who do not know Yahweh's seasons: "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 contrast is between the bird's instinctive timekeeping and Israel's failure to keep the law.

Wings of a Stork in the Vision

In Zechariah's vision of the ephah carried out of the land, the stork's wings appear as the means of removal: "Then I lifted up my eyes, and looked, and saw there came forth two women, and the wind was in their wings; now they had wings like the wings of a stork; and they lifted up the ephah between earth and heaven" (Zech 5:9). The strength of the stork's wing — large, capable of long flight — fits the figure of carrying wickedness away.