The cock is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures and appears in the Christian Greek Scriptures only in connection with its crowing. (See COCKCROWING.) The most frequent references relate to Jesus’ prophecy concerning Peter’s denials of him, fulfilled on the night prior to Jesus’ death and recounted by all four writers of the Gospel accounts.​—Mt 26:34, 74, 75; Mr 14:30, 72; Lu 22:34, 60, 61; Joh 13:38; 18:27.

While the Jewish Mishnah (Bava Kamma 7:7) contains a prohibition against the keeping of domestic fowl by the Jews, because of the probability of their causing ceremonial defilement, rabbinic sources indicate that they were kept as much by the Jews as by the Romans. An onyx seal bearing the figure of a cock was found near Mizpah and contains the inscription “belonging to Jaazaniah, servant of the king.” If, as some suggest, this Jaazaniah (Jezaniah) is the one mentioned at 2 Kings 25:23 and Jeremiah 40:8, this would indicate the keeping of cocks in Israel back in the seventh century B.C.E. The figure of a cock has also been found on a shard of a cooking pot excavated at ancient Gibeon.

Both the hen, with its chicks, and the egg are used by Jesus in his illustrations, indicating that the domestic fowl was well known to his listeners.​—Mt 23:37; Lu 11:12; 13:34; see HEN, II.

On the basis of statements made in the Jewish Mishnah (Bava Kamma 7:7), some argue that cocks were not bred in Jerusalem, since they caused ceremonial uncleanness by their scratching up the ground. They say that the cockcrowing mentioned by Jesus actually refers to the Roman gallicinium, a time signal said to be made with bugles by the Roman guard stationed on the ramparts of the Tower of Antonia in Jerusalem that sounded out at the close of the third night watch.

However, Jewish Talmudic references indicate that cocks were bred in Jerusalem in those times. (For example, see The Mishnah, Eduyyot 6:1.) Further indication is that Jesus, when mourning over the city of Jerusalem, chose the simile of a ‘mother hen’s gathering her chicks under her wings’ to express the desire he had held toward it. (Mt 23:37) His choice of illustrations was always such as would readily be appreciated by his listeners. So, in his statement to Peter, there seems to be no good reason for assuming that Jesus meant anything other than a literal cockcrowing.