As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings:
As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings:
As an eagle that stirreth up her nest, That fluttereth over her young, He spread abroad his wings, he took them, He bare them on his pinions.
As an eagle, teaching her young to make their flight, with her wings outstretched over them, takes them up on her strong feathers:
As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings;
As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers.
As an eagle that stirreth up her nest, That fluttereth over her young, He spread abroad his wings, he took them, He bare them on his pinions:
As an eagle stirreth up her nest - Flutters over her brood to excite them to fly; or, as some think, disturbs her nest to oblige the young ones to leave it; so God by his plagues in Egypt obliged the Israelites, otherwise very reluctant, to leave a place which he appeared by his judgments to have devoted to destruction.
Fluttereth over her young - ירחף yeracheph, broodeth over them, communicating to them a portion of her own vital warmth: so did God, by the influences of his Spirit, enlighten, encourage, and strengthen their minds. It is the same word which is used in Genesis 1:2.
Spreadeth abroad her wings, etc. - In order, not only to teach them how to fly, but to bear them when weary. For to this fact there seems an allusion, it having been generally believed that the eagle, through extraordinary affection for her young, takes them upon her back when they are weary of flying, so that the archers cannot injure them but by piercing the body of the mother. The same figure is used Exodus 19:4 (note); in the note. The נשר nesher, which we translate eagle, is supposed by Mr. Bruce to mean the rachama, a bird remarkable for its affection to its young, which it is known actually to bear on its back when they are weary.
Compare Exodus 19:4. The "so," which the King James Version supplies in the next verse, should he inserted before "spreadeth," and omitted from Deuteronomy 32:12. The sense is, "so He spread out His wings, took them up," etc.
32:11 Her nest - Her young ones in the nest; which she by her cry and motion provoketh to fly. Her wings - As preparing herself to fly.On her wings - Or, as on her wings, that is, gently, and tenderly and safely too, as if she carried them not in her claws for fear of hurting them, but upon her wings. Some say, the eagle doth usually carry her young ones upon her wings.