498 Arthur Walker-Jones early Christian edifying cycle of observations on nature that confused the stork and the ostrich (14). The passage combined Job 39,14 and Jer 8,7 and read the transliteration of the Hebrew word for stork in Jer 8,7 (asida) as ostrich (strouqokavmhlo") (15). Jeremiah the Prophet says of this animal, ‘Even the ostrich in heaven knows her own time’ [Jer 8,7]. … When her time comes for laying eggs, this animal raises her eyes to the heavens. … When the ostrich sees that Virgilia has risen in the heavens, she digs a hole in the desert ground, deposits her eggs, and covers them with sand. Once having departed that place, however, she immediately forgets it and does not return to her eggs, for this animal is by nature forgetful. … If the ostrich knows her own time and raises her eyes to heaven and forgets her young, how much more fitting is it for us to know our time, forget earthly things and pursue heavenly things and to raise the eyes of our hearts? (16) Physiologus was probably written no later than the end of the fourth century and uses a wide variety of sources, some of which go much further back in history (17). Since Jerome did his translation work at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, Physiologus, either directly or indirectly, could have been the source of his translation of µynnr as ostrich. A number of features of the context also argue against the translation of µynnr as ostrich. The MT of verse 15, translated rather literally, reads: “She forgets that a foot might crush her, a wild animal trample her”. It is difficult to imagine an animal stepping on an ostrich and, in my opinion, provides a strong argument against translating µynnr as an ostrich. Since most commentators and translators assume the µynnr is an ostrich, they take the pronouns as referring, not to the mother, but to her eggs and translate: “She forgets that a foot might crush them, a wild animal trample them” (18). To support this trans- lation appeal is made to a “very rarely found” use of the third feminine singular pronoun referring to a plural of things (19). This appeal to a rare (14) MÜLLER, “Straußenperikope ”, 94. (15) B. LAUFER, “Ostrich Egg-shell Cups of Mesopotamia and the Ostrich in Ancient and Modern Times”, Anthropology Leaflet 23 (Chicago 1926) 13. (16) Physiologus (ed. M.J. CURLEY) (Austin – London 1979) 55-56. (17) Physiologus, xvii–xxvi. (18) The LXX has no pronouns. (19) P. JOÜON, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (trans. and rev. T. MURAOKA) (Roma 1993), §149a; Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, §135p.