Of the Sky

Birding can look different at different times and in different locations. A backyard birder focuses on the birds at and around his feeders. Often birding consists of taking a walk, observing the surrounding fields and forests. Wintertime birding often involves scanning ponds and lakes for waterfowl. At a hawk watch, observers at the top of a mountain review the skies in every direction.

None of these scenarios has an exclusive focus, however. In every case, an alert birder will broadly consider all of his immediate environment. Most of my birding falls into the “taking a walk” context. I’m constantly looking around at the fields, bushes, and trees, as well as any nearby water features. But one of my favorite bits of advice is “Don’t forget to check the sky.”

One of the challenges of birding is learning to identify birds in flight. Because the birds are in motion, it’s difficult to get a good look at them, and the glimpse is often brief. Most birds in flight are not close enough to see their detailed markings. Backlit against the sky, it is often difficult to see much more than a silhouette. I used to not even try.

Over time, I have started to have some skill with birds in flight – but only some! Some birds have distinct flight patterns, like goldfinches and woodpeckers. Some birds sing as they fly, and their songs or call notes identify them – goldfinches, chimney swifts, grackles, and others. Eventually, the shapes in flight become familiar. Bluejays with wings too long for their bodies, robins coming in like bombers, grackles with their tails looking detached like a Dali cubist painting, mourning doves with their fat bodies and pointed tails. Sometimes it is the group dynamic that gives them away - Canada geese, European starlings, cedar waxwings. A hawk watch features constant conversation about the shape of the wings, the length of the tail, the protrusion of the head, and how often a bird is flapping.

This upward focus is a recognition of the single most common thing that the Bible says about birds – that they belong to the skies. When God created the birds, He assigned them to the heavens. “Then God said, ‘Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens’” (Genesis 1:20).

This designation is repeated 37 more times in the Old Testament and 10 times in the New Testament, so 48 times God tells us that birds belong to the sky. The Hebrew, Chaldean, and Greek words used all simply refer to the sky, the place where the clouds are. The words can carry the idea of elevation or of being aloft.

The phrases that appear have slight variations and use the synonyms of sky, heaven(s), and air to define the realm of the birds. These varied phrases include “birds of the sky,” “every bird of the sky,” “any winged bird that flies in the sky,” “birds of the heavens,” “birds of heaven,” “bird of the heavens,” “birds of the air,” and “birds which fly in midheaven.”

The references, for those who are interested, are Genesis 1:20, 1:26, 1:28, 1:30, 2:19, 2:20, 6:7, 7:3, 7:23, 9:2; Deuteronomy 4:17; 1 Samuel 17:44, 17:46; 2 Samuel 21:10; 1 Kings 14:11, 16:4, 21:24; Job 28:21; Psalms 8:8, 79:2, 104:12; Ecclesiastes 10:20; Jeremiah 7:33, 9:10, 15:3, 16:4, 19:7, 34:20; Ezekiel 29:5, 32:4, 38:20; Daniel 2:38, 4:12, 4:21; Hosea 2:18, 4:3, 7:12; Zephaniah 1:3; Matthew 6:26, 8:20, 13:32; Mark 4:32; Luke 8:5, 9:58, 13:19; Acts 10:12, 11:6; Revelation 19:17.

Why is God so careful to consistently refer to birds in this way? It seems redundant. They are birds; of course, they are in the sky. What other possibility is there for birds? Could we have birds of the water or birds of the ground? In fact, we could perhaps argue for those possibilities. For example, a puffin, albatross, gannet, skua, or petrel spends much of its life far out at sea. Flightless birds like the ostrich, emu, kiwi, rhea, and cassowary do exist. However, those seabirds do fly; they simply fly above the ocean. They don’t live in the sea. It is my opinion that the flightless birds were not always that way. I believe that through breeding or genetic abnormalities passed through generations these birds lost the ability to fly. Birds have wings, and they were designed and created to belong to the sky in a way that is distinct from the other creatures.

Here’s a Biblical illustration of that fact. When Noah was trying to determine if the floodwaters had receded, he sent a dove out of the ark. “But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the earth” (Genesis 8:9). Birds do not belong to the realm of the waters. The dove survived outside the ark only by restricting itself to the sky.

I believe the reason God so consistently refers to “birds of the sky” is because He is setting forth the major animal divisions that He planned. Man has recognized God’s order and has made classification systems. We recognize the animal kingdom. After the kingdom level comes phylum. This is where the insects separate from the vertebrates. The vertebrates then divide at the class level into birds, mammals, and fish.

This is a simplified explanation, of course, but I choose these four categories – insects, birds, mammals, and fish – because they are the four divisions that God regularly refers to. Multiple passages refer to one or more of these divisions, but one time we find all four listed in the same verse. “On every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea” (Genesis 9:2).

God made these divisions. The mammals are beasts of the earth, or sometimes beasts of the field. The birds are birds of the sky or heavens. The fish are fish of the sea. And the creepy-crawly insects are assigned to the ground. Evolution would like to blur and blend the lines between these groups, but God created them differently and distinctly. In fact, man wants to blur and erase distinctions on many levels, but God sets boundaries. He has an order to things, and part of that order was to make creatures uniquely suited to function and thrive in the skies.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.