Bittern

Is found three times in connection with the desolations to come upon Babylon, Idumea, and Nineveh (Isa. 14:23; 34:11; Zeph. 2:14). This bird belongs to the class of cranes. Its scientific name is Botaurus stellaris. It is a solitary bird, frequenting marshy ground. The Hebrew word (kippod) thus rendered in the Authorized Version is rendered "porcupine" in the Revised Version. But in the passages noted the kippod is associated with birds, with pools of water, and with solitude and desolation. This favours the idea that not the "porcupine" but the "bittern" is really intended by the word.

קפוד. Isa. xiv, 23; xxxiv, 11; and Zephaniah ii, 14. Interpreters have rendered this word variously: an _owl_, an _osprey_, a _tortoise_, a _porcupine_, and even an _otter_. “How unhappy,” says Mr. Harmer, “that a word which occurs but three times in the Hebrew Bible should be translated by three different words, and that one of them should be _otter_!” Isaiah, prophesying the destruction of Babylon, says that “the Lord will make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water;” and Zephaniah, ii, 14, prophesying against Nineveh, says that “the cormorant and bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it: their voice shall sing in the windows.” The Arabic version reads “_al-houbara_.” According to Dr. Shaw, the _houbara_ is “of the bigness of a capon, but of a longer body. It feeds on little shrubs and insects, like the _graab el Sahara_; frequenting, in like manner, the confines of the desert.” Golius interprets it _the bustard_; and Dr. Russel says that the Arabic name of the bustard is “houbry.”