John Topel, «What Kind of a Sign are Vultures? Luke 17,37b», Vol. 84 (2003) 403-411
The only consensus about the meaning of Jesus' proverb in Q, Matthew or Luke is that it is enigmatic. But closer attention to the trope itself and its literary context may give clues to its meaning in Luke 17. The two principal preoccupations of exegetes are 1) whether aetoi means eagles or vultures, and 2) how to define the literary context in which the proverb is to be read: does it refer to the coming day of the Son of Man (17,22-34) or of the last judgment (17,34-35)? This paper argues that aetoi here must mean vultures and the appropriate context for the interpretation of the proverb is the whole speech, for which its serves as the conclusion. There is a curious interplay between the Pharisees' "When" (v. 20) and the "Where?" (v. 37a) of the disciples. Attending to the polysemic possibilities of the proverb provides a meaning which knits the whole speech together.
The proverb is either a riddle to shut them up, or a more figurative denial that a particular place can be assigned39.
But the human mind is reluctant to accept a riddle and wants to understand the proverb. Further, if the reader is consistent, she wants to know how the proverb serves as the conclusion of the sermon. Perhaps there is something in the intrinsic intelligibility of the figure that might provide these understandings.
4. The Figurative Meaning of the Proverb
Since the proverb reflects the natural world of birds and feeding, natural responses are at the base of the proverb. "Where the corpse is, vultures will gather" points to the stimulus/response that brings vultures to the place of the carrion. It is the automatic response of unblocked instinct, and so the figure emphasizes sureness. Contemporary exegetes who relate the proverb to its immediate context in 17,34-35 assert that Jesus is telling the disciples that the quest for a certain place is unnecessary. They will no more need a special sign than do the vultures: they will recognize the Son of Man wherever he appears with the same surety with which the vulture finds the carrion. In that way, Jesus' proverbial response echoes the response he gives to the Pharisees' question: the specific place is irrelevant.
But this interpretation cannot function as a conclusion to all the emphasis on the suddenness and unknowability of the time, which dominated the whole eschatological speech. Is there, in the response of vultures to carrion, a temporal meaning which would respond more closely to the temporal emphasis of the speech as a whole?
Here the polysemic character of all figurative language comes into play. Exact literal speech might limit Jesus' answer to "Where" to a local meaning for 17,34-35. But a polysemic expression like a proverb can respond not only to the local meaning suggested by the disciples' question, but can also suggest another aspect of the vultures' flocking to carrion which could summarize Jesus' evocation of temporal urgency throughout all of 17,21-35. A temporal meaning would correspond to the inevitable linking of space and time in human thought and expression. What is there in vultures' behavior which might speak to Jesus' denial of signs for the eschatological arrival of the Son of Man in the perfect Reign of God?
Timing itself provides the clue. Vultures arrive at the scene after death has taken place, or the animal is already irreversibly dying, is already "dead meat." Vultures are a post factum sign that an event (an animal's death) has already occurred. In that case, the proverb about vultures fits Jesus' purposes perfectly in Luke 17,20-3740. Jesus has responded to the Pharisees that the final Reign of God will not come with advance signs subject to human observation (17,20). He expands this reply for his disciples, giving examples