Pelican

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PELICAN (qâ’ath, prob. from root ‘to vomit’).—One of the ‘unclean’ birds (Lev_11:18, Deu_14:17) inhabiting the ruins of Nineveh (Zep_2:14, where AV [Note: Authorized Version.] has ‘cormorant’), and desolate Idumæa (Isa_34:11). ‘A pelican in the wilderness’ is referred to in Psa_102:3. If in these two last gâ’ath is really ‘pelican,’ It is a poetical and conventional reference, for this bird’s habitat is always near pools of water or the sea; the creature’s attitude after a plentiful gorge, when he sits with his head sunk on his breast, is supposed to suggest melancholy. In Palestine two species are known, of which the white pelican (Pelicanus onocrotalus) is plentiful in the more retired parts of the Jordan lakes, especially in the Huleh. It is nearly 6 feet from heak to end of tail, and is remarkable chiefly for its pouch, in which it collects fish for feeding itself and its young. The other species is P. crispus, the Dalmatian pelican.
E. W. G. Masterman.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

ka'ath. Two species exist in the Levant, Pelican onocratalus and Pelican crispus. Often found on the upper Jordan. The Hebrew name is an imitation of its harsh donkey-like braying note, as onocratalus expresses; or from a root "to throw up," from its bringing fish back to its mouth from its large pouch beneath the beak. The origin of the fable of its feeding its young with its blood sprang from its pressing its under mandible against its breast to help it to disgorge its pouch's contents for its young, and from the red nail on the end of the upper mandible coming in contact with the breast.
"Pelican of the wilderness" alludes to its seeking uninhabited places as breeding places. Being a water bird, it could not live in a place destitute of water. But midbar means simply "an open unenclosed land", as distinguished from a settled agricultural region. Its posture with bill resting on its breast suggests the idea of melancholy solitude (Psa_102:6; Isa_34:11, where ka'ath is "pelican" not "cormorant".) After filling its pouch with fish and mollusks, it retires miles away inland to consume the contents of its pouch.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Pelican. (Hebrew, kaath). Pelican, sometimes translated, "cormorant," as Isa_34:11; Zep_2:14, though in the margin correctly rendered, "pelican". A voracious waterbird, found most abundantly in tropical regions. It is equal to the swan in size. (It has a flat bill fifteen inches long, and the female has under the bill, a pouch capable of great distension. It is capacious enough to hold fish sufficient for the dinner of half a dozen men. The young are fed from this pouch, which is emptied of the food by pressing the pouch against the breast.
The pelican's bill has a crimson tip, and the contrast of this red tip against the white breast, probably, gave rise to the tradition that the bird tore her own breast, to feed her young with her blood. The flesh of the pelican was forbidden to the Jews. Lev_11:18 ? Editor). The psalmist, in comparing his pitiable condition to the pelican, Psa_102:6, probably, has reference to its general aspect, as it sits in apparent melancholy mood, with its bill resting on its breast.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

קאת , Lev_11:18; Deu_14:17; Psa_102:7; Isa_34:11; Zep_2:14; a very remarkable aquatic bird, of the size of a large goose. Its colour is a grayish white, except that the neck looks a little yellowish, and the middle of the back feathers are blackish. The bill is long, and hooked at the end, and has under it a lax membrane, extended to the throat, which makes a bag or sack, capable of holding a very large quantity. Feeding her young from this bag has so much the appearance of feeding them with her own blood, that it caused this fabulous opinion to be propagated, and made the pelican an emblem of paternal, as the stork had been before chosen, more justly, of filial affection. The voice of this bird is harsh and dissonant, which some say resembles that of a man grievously complaining. David compares his groaning to it, Psa_102:7.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

pel?i-kan (קאת, ḳā'ath; Latin Pelecanus onocrotalus Septuagint reads πελεκάν, pelekán, in Leviticus and Psalms, but has 3 other readings, that are rather confusing, in the other places)): Any bird of the genus Pelecanus. The Hebrew ḳı̄' means ?to vomit.? The name was applied to the bird because it swallowed large quantities of fish and then disgorged them to its nestlings. In the performance of this act it pressed the large beak, in the white species, tipped with red, against the crop and slightly lifted the wings. In ancient times, people, seeing this, believed that the bird was puncturing its breast and feeding its young with its blood. From this idea arose the custom of using a pelican with lifted wings in heraldry or as a symbol of Christ and of charity. (See Fictitious Creatures in Art, 182-86, London, Chapman and Hall, 1906.) Palestine knew a white and a brownish-gray bird, both close to 6 ft. long and having over a 12 ft. sweep of wing. They lived around the Dead Sea, fished beside the Jordan and abounded in greatest numbers in the wildernesses of the Mediterranean shore. The brown pelicans were larger than the white. Each of them had a long beak, peculiar throat pouch and webbed feet. They built large nests, 5 and 6 ft. across, from dead twigs of bushes, and laid two or three eggs. The brown birds deposited a creamy-white egg with a rosy flush; the white, a white egg with bluish tints. The young were naked at first, then covered with down, and remained in the nest until full feathered and able to fly. This compelled the parent birds to feed them for a long time, and they carried such quantities of fish to a nest that the young could not consume all of them and many were dropped on the ground. The tropical sun soon made the location unbearable to mortals. Perching pelicans were the ugliest birds imaginable, but when their immense brown or white bodies swept in a 12 ft. spread across the land and over sea, they made an impressive picture. They are included, with good reason, in the list of abominations (see Lev_11:18; Deu_14:17). They are next mentioned in Psa_102:6 :
?I am like a pelican of the wilderness;
I am become as an owl of the waste places.?
Here David from the depths of affliction likened himself to a pelican as it appears when it perches in the wilderness. See Isa_34:11 : ?But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein: and he will stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness.? Here the bird is used to complete the picture of desolation that was to prevail after the destruction of Edom. The other reference concerns the destruction of Nineveh and is found in Zep_2:14 : ?And herds shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the capitals thereof; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he hath laid bare the cedar-work.?

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.


Fig. 290?Pelican
Pelican (Lev_11:18; Deu_14:17; Psa_102:6; Isa_34:11; Zep_2:14).
The name kaath thus rendered, is supposed to be derived from the action of throwing up food, which the bird really effects when discharging the contents of the bag beneath its bill. But it may be suggested, as not unlikely, that the name is imitative of the voice of the pelican, which, although seldom heard in captivity, is uttered frequently at the periods of migration, and is compared to the braying of an ass.
Pelicans are chiefly tropical birds, equal or superior in bulk to the common swan: they have powerful wings; fly at a great elevation; are partially gregarious; and though some always remain in their favorite subsolar regions, most of them migrate in our hemisphere with the northern spring, occupy Syria, the lakes and rivers of temperate Asia, and extend westward into Europe up the Danube into Hungary, and northward to some rivers of southern Russia. They likewise frequent salt-water marshes, and the shallows of harbors, but seldom alight on the open sea, though they are said to dart down upon fish from a considerable height.




The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Psa_102:6 (a) This is a type of CHRIST in His loneliness. He was a stranger in a strange land, and among enemies. The pelican obtained its food from the sea, not in the wilderness. In the wilderness it could find no food and no companionship. It was away from its customary haunts. So CHRIST was away from Heaven, His element, and was among strangers where there was nothing upon which His soul could feed.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.

Pelican
(קָאִת, kaath'y Syriac, kaka; Arabic and Talmuds, kuk and kik; Sept. πελεκάν, Lev_11:18; καταῤῥάκτης, Deu_14:17; στεναγμός, Psalm cii. 6; ὄρνεον, Isa_34:11; χαμαιλέων, Zep_2:14; Vulg. pelican, onoclratulus). Among the unclean birds mention is made of the kadth (Lev_11:18; Deu_14:17). The suppliant Psalmist compares his condition to “a kadth in the wilderness” (Psa_102:6). As a mark of the desolation that was to come upon Edom, it is said that “the kadth and the bittern should possess it” (Isa_34:11). The same words are spoken of Nineveh (Zep_2:14). In these two last places the A.V. has “; cormorant” in the text, and “pelican” in the margin. The expression “pelican of the wilderness” has, with no good reason, been supposed by some to prove that the kadth cannot be denoted by this bird. Shaw (Trav. 2:303, 8vo ed.) says “the pelican must of necessity starve in the desert,” as it is essentially a water bird. In answer to this objection, it will be enough to observe that the term midbar (“wilderness”) is by no means restricted to barren sandy spots destitute of water. “The idea,” says Prof. Stanley, “is that of a wide open space, with or without actual pasture; the country of the nomads, as distinguished from that of the agricultural and settled people” (Sin. and Pal. p. 486). As a matter of fact, however, the pelican, after having filled its pouch with fish and mollusks, often does retire miles inland away from water, to some spot where it consumes the contents of its pouch. Pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus) are often seen associated in large flocks; at other times single individuals may be observed sitting in lonely and pensive silence on the ledge of some rock a few feet above the surface of the water (see Kitto, Pict. Bib. on Psalm cii. 6). It is not quite clear what is the particular point in the nature or character of the pelican with which the Psalmist compares his pitiable condition. Some have supposed that it consists in the loud cry of the bird: compare “the voice of my sighing” (ver. 5). We are inclined to believe that reference is made to its general aspect as it sits in apparent melancholy mood, with its bill resting on its breast. Oedmann's opinion that the Pelicanis graculus, the shag cormorant (Verm. Samml. 3:57), and Bochart's, that the “bittern” is intended, are unsupported by any good evidence. Neither is there sufficient ground to infer from the above passage any peculiar capability in the genus to occupy remote solitudes; for they live on fish, and generally nestle in reedy abodes; and man, in all regions, equally desirous to possess food, water, and verdure, occupies the same localities for the same reasons. Perhaps the Psalmist refers to one isolated by circumstances from the usual haunts of these birds, and casually nestling among rocks, Where water, and consequently food, begins to fail in the dry season, as is commonly the case eastward of the Jordan — such a supposition offering an image of misery and desolation forcibly applicable to the context (see Thomson, Land and Book, 1:403). The best authorities are therefore in favor of the pelican being the bird denoted by kaath. The etymology of the name, from a word meaning “to vomit,” leads also to the same conclusion, for it doubtless has reference to the habit which this bird has of pressing its under mandible against its breast, in order to assist it to disgorge the contents of its capacious pouch for its young. This is, with good reason, supposed to be the origin of the fable about the pelican feeding its young with its own blood, the red nail on the upper mandible serving to complete the delusion.
Pelicans are chiefly tropical birds, equal or superior in bulk to the common swan. They are partially gregarious; and though some always remain in their favorite subsolar regions. most of them migrate in the northern hemisphere with the northern spring, occupy Syria, the lakes and rivers of temperate Asia, and extend westward into Europe, up the Danube into Hungary, and northward to some rivers of Southern Russia. They ,likewise frequent salt-water marshes and the shallows of harbors, but seldom alight on the open sea, though they are said to dart down upon fish from a considerable height. Notwithstanding their perfect development of the natatorial structure, they are good flyers, and the form of their feet does not interfere with their perching on trees, in which habit they are somewhat peculiar among swimming birds. They are all remarkable for voracity. The skin which extends from the throat between the rami of the lower mandible is extensible, and this structure attains its highest point of development in the true pelicans, in which the distended pouch is capable of holding ten quarts of water. The use of this membrane is that of a reservoir for the temporary retention of the fishes that are captured; enabling the bird to dispose of the superfluous quantity for its own future consumption or for its sitting mate and young. The face of the pelican is naked; the bill, long, broad, and flat, is terminated by a strong, crooked, and crimson-colored nail, which, when fish is pressed out of the pouch, and the bird is at rest, is seen reposing upon the crop, and then may be fancied to represent an ensanguined spot. This, as above observed, may have occasioned the fabulous tale which represents the bird as wounding her own bared breast to revive its young brood; for that part of the bag which is visible then appears like a naked breast, all the feathers of the body being white or slightly tinged with rose color, except the great quills, which are black. The feet have all the toes united by broad membranes, and are of a nearly orange color. Pelecanus onocrotalus, the species here noticed, is the most widely spread of the genus, being supposed to be identical at the Cape of Good Hope and in India, as well as in Western Asia. It is very distinctly represented in ancient Egyptian paintings, where the birds are seen in numbers congregated among reeds, and the natives collecting basketfuls of their eggs. They still frequent the marshes of the Delta of the Nile. and the islands of the river high up the country, and resort to the lakes of Palestine, excepting the Dead Sea. The Pelecanus onocrotalus (common pelican) and the Pelecanus crispus are often observed in Palestine, Egypt, etc. Of the latter Mfr. Tristram noticed an immense flock swimming out to sea within sight of Mount Carmel (Ibis, 1:37).
PELICAN, in Christian symbolism. , A figure of this bird “vulning herself” — that is, feeding her young with her own blood — was common in old churches, the allusion being emblematic of our redemption through the sufferings of Christ. The pelican often surmounts the cross. A brass pelican was employed as a lectern prior to the use of the eagle. SEE EAGLE; SEE LECTERN.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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