Hebrew word · H7360

רָחָם

haracham

carrion

A carrion-eating bird. Nearly all scholars identify it as the Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), because Arabic rakham is the ordinary name for that bird. It appears only in Leviticus 11:18 (raḥam) and here (raḥamah).

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) carrion vulture

1a) perhaps an extinct bird, exact meaning unknown

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Deuteronomy 14:17

Range of meaning

A carrion-eating bird. Nearly all scholars identify it as the Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), because Arabic rakham is the ordinary name for that bird. It appears only in Leviticus 11:18 (raḥam) and here (raḥamah).

Against the English

KJV and YLT say 'gier eagle.' WEB says 'vulture.' ESV and NASB say 'carrion vulture.' NIV and BSB say 'osprey,' which the evidence supports less well, because an osprey is a fish-eating hawk, not a scavenger.

How it drifted

'Gier eagle' is an old English word built from Dutch and German Geier, 'vulture.' Modern readers hear 'eagle' and picture an eagle. The KJV translators meant a vulture.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Arabic cognate rakham, meaning the same bird, is the strongest evidence. Later rabbinic tradition played on the likeness to raḥamim, 'mercy': the Talmud (Hullin 63a) says that when the raḥam appears, mercy comes to the world. That is a wordplay, not the bird's real derivation.

Similar words

Where it appears

Leviticus · 1

  1. Leviticus 11:18 הָרָחָֽם׃ the Egyptian vulture

    the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey,

Deuteronomy · 1

  1. Deuteronomy 14:17 הָרָחָ֖מָה the Egyptian vulture <towards>

    the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant,

    Here: Almost certainly the Egyptian vulture, a small white-and-black scavenger common in the Levant. Its Arabic name, rakham, is the same word. Here it has the form raḥamah. Leviticus 11:18 has raḥam.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.