Hart

(Heb. ayal), a stag or male deer. It is ranked among the clean animals (Deut. 12:15; 14:5; 15:22), and was commonly killed for food (1 Kings 4:23). The hart is frequently alluded to in the poetical and prophetical books (Isa. 35:6; Cant. 2:8, 9; Lam. 1:6; Ps. 42:1).

איל, Deut. xii, 15; xiv, 5; Psalm xlii, 1; Isaiah xxxv, 6, the stag, or male deer. Dr. Shaw considers its name in Hebrew as a generic word including all the species of the deer kind; whether they are distinguished by round horns, as the stag; or by flat ones, as the fallow deer; or by the smallness of the branches, as the roe. Mr. Good observes that the hind and roe, the hart and the antelope, were held, and still continue to be, in the highest estimation in all the eastern countries, for the voluptuous beauty of their eyes, the delicate elegance of their form, or their graceful agility of action. The names of these animals were perpetually applied, therefore, to persons, whether male or female, who were supposed to be possessed of any of their respective qualities. In 2 Sam. i, 19, Saul is denominated “the roe of Israel;” and in the eighteenth verse of the ensuing chapter, we are told that “Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe:” a phraseology perfectly synonymous with the epithet _swift-footed_, which Homer has so frequently bestowed upon his hero Achilles. Thus again: “Her princes are like harts which find no pasture; they are fled without strength before their pursuers,” Lam. i, 6. “The Lord Yahweh is my strength; he will make my feet like hinds’ feet; he will cause me to tread again on my own hills,” Hab. iii, 19. See HIND.