BULBUL

(bulʹbul) [Heb., ʽa·ghurʹ].

The name of a number of types of medium-sized thrushlike birds found in Africa and southern Asia, including Palestine. The bulbul characteristically has a short neck, short wings, and a long tail. While many translations render ʽa·ghurʹ as “crane,” Hezekiah’s reference to the bird’s “chirping” would hardly describe the deep trumpeting sound made by that large bird. (Isa 38:14) Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (by L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, Leiden, 1958, p. 679) identified ʽa·ghurʹ as the bulbul (Pycnonotus Reichenovi). Ludwig Koehler says the Hebrew ʽa·ghurʹ describes a bird that ‘ruffles or bristles its feathers’ and says concerning the bulbul that “during the pauses (of its song) it lifts . . . from time to time the extended crestlike feathers of the back of the head.” (Kleine Lichter [German], Zurich, 1945, pp. 38, 39) Unlike the somewhat bellowing sound of the crane, the song of the bulbul is rather flutelike in tone and is described as a combination chirp and warble.

Jeremiah (8:7) evidently refers to the seasonal arrival of migratory birds in his censuring the Israelites for not discerning the time of God’s judgment on them.