NIGHTJAR
[Heb., li·lithʹ].
This Hebrew word, appearing in the description of Edom’s utter desolation and of the creatures inhabiting its ruins (Isa. 34:14), has been variously translated as “screech owl” (AV), “night-monster” (AS), and “night hag” (RS), while The Jerusalem Bible prefers simply to transliterate the name as “Lilith.” Many modern authorities endeavor to show that the Hebrew term is a “loan-word” from ancient Sumerian and Akkadian and that it derives from the name of a mythological female demon of the air (lilitu). Others, however, consider such a position unwarranted. Thus, in concluding its discussion of the matter, The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Vol. IV, p. 2145) states: “There still remains a by no means untenable supposition that none of the terms necessarily are mythological in this particular passage.” The New Bible Dictionary (1962, p. 740) comments: “There is, however, no real evidence for insisting on a mythological interpretation of the word, and it is perhaps significant that most of the other creatures listed in Is. xxxiv are real animals or birds.”
In an article in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1959, Vol. XCI, p. 55), Professor G. R. Driver likewise states that “there is no reason to expect such a loan-word in any passage of the Old Testament where no ancient Vs.[Version] attests it.” He considers the Hebrew word (li·lithʹ) to derive from a root word denoting “every kind of twisting motion or twisted object,” even as the Hebrew word layʹlah (or laʹyil) meaning “night” suggests a “wrapping itself round or enfolding the earth.” Such derivation of li·lithʹ, he suggests, may likely point to the “nightjar” as both a nocturnal feeding bird and one noted for its rapid twisting and turning flight as it pursues moths, beetles and other night-flying insects. Tristram, the naturalist, described the nightjar as “becoming very active towards dusk, when they hawk about at great speed and with intricate turnings after their food.”
As to the likelihood of such a bird being found in the arid region of Edom, certain varieties of this bird are known to inhabit waste places. An Egyptian nightjar (Caprimulgus æqyptius) lives almost exclusively in the desert, occupying acacia groves and tamarisk bushes and seeking its food in twilight. Another (Caprimulgus tamaricis) is found at the northern and southern ends of the Dead Sea, hence in regions like that of Edom.
The nightjar is considered to be related to the owl and to include the whippoorwill among its members. Its English name derives from the fact that, like the owl, it is a nocturnal feeder and also from the peculiar “jarring” sound it makes, described as like the churring sound of “a pallet falling on the cogs of a rapidly-working wheel.” About eleven inches (28 centimeters) in length with a wingspan of twenty inches (51 centimeters), its plumage resembles the owl’s, being soft and delicately mottled with gray and brown. The soft wing feathers also allow for noiseless flight like that of the owls. Unlike the owl, however, it is solely an insect eater, equipped with a small beak but an unusually large mouth in which it engulfs its food, large bristles projecting from the corners of the mouth helping to funnel in the insects. Its large mouth is evidently the reason for its also being called the “goatsucker,” an ancient legend holding that the bird sucked the milk of goats.