דּוּכִיפַת

From the study of Leviticus 11:19

Range of meaning

The hoopoe (Upupa epops), a crested, black-and-white-winged bird found in Israel all year and also on migration. Some Jewish tradition identified it as a "wild rooster" or "mountain-carpenter." The origin of the name is uncertain.

Against the English

BSB, WEB, NIV, ESV, NASB, NLT: "hoopoe." KJV and YLT: "lapwing," a plover with a small crest. That name came down through earlier English Bibles and is now generally abandoned.

How it drifted

"Lapwing" was a sixteenth-century guess that stayed in the KJV tradition. Since the Septuagint (epops) and the Vulgate (upupa) both clearly mean the hoopoe, modern versions went back to that.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Septuagint has epops, the Vulgate upupa. The Talmud (Ḥullin 63a) calls it the "wild rooster" and plays on its name as "its glory is doubled/folded," which fits the hoopoe's folding crest. Gittin 68b connects it with the legend of the shamir, the rock-cutting worm of Solomon's temple. The hoopoe is Solomon's messenger to Sheba in later Jewish and Islamic tradition (Targum Sheni to Esther; Qurʾan 27). It appears in Egyptian art. Modern Israel chose it as its national bird in 2008.