Luke 17:37: There the Eagles?

There is a slight difference between the two forms of this saying which does not appear in the English of the RSV: in Matthew 24:28 the Greek word translated "body" means specifically a dead body, whereas Luke uses the more general word for "body," alive or dead, although in the present context a dead body is implied.

The saying gives the impression of being a proverbial utterance, applied (as proverbial utterances regularly are) to some appropriate situation. But are the birds of prey mentioned in the saying really eagles? Might we not have expected a reference to vultures? Yes indeed; but there are two points to be made.

First the Hebrew word normally translated "eagle" in the Old Testament appears occasionally to denote the vulture. "Make yourselves as bald as the eagle," the people of Judah are told in Micah 1:16 (RSV); but it is the vulture, not the eagle, that is bald (as translated in NIV). In those places where the Hebrew word for "eagle" seems to have the meaning "vulture," it is the Greek word for "eagle" that is used in the Greek version of the Old Testament; so that for Matthew and Luke there was this precedent for the occasional use of the Greek word for "eagle" in the sense of "vulture."

Next, even if (as is probable) the proverbial utterance referred originally to vultures, the change to "eagles" may have been made deliberately, if not in the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, then in the Greek version of his words on which the Gospels of Matthew and Luke drew. "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather" means in effect "Where there is a situation ripe for judgment, there the judgment will fall." But the situation in view in the context is the city of Jerusalem, doomed to destruction because of its unwillingness to pay heed to the message of peace that Jesus brought. The executioners of this particular judgment were Roman legionary forces. The eagle was the standard of a Roman legion, and this may explain the choice of the word "eagles" here.

T. W. Manson, who prefers the rendering "vultures" here and sees no reference to the Roman military eagles, thinks the point of the saying is the swiftness with which vultures discover the presence of carrion and flock to feast on it. So swiftly will the judgment fall "on the day the Son of Man is revealed" (Lk 17:30).

In Luke's account, but not in Mat-thew's, the saying is Jesus' reply to a question asked by the disciples. He has just told them how, on that day, the judgment will seize on one person and pass over another, separating two people asleep in the same bed or two women grinding at one mill (one of them turning the upper stone and the other pouring in the grain). "Where, Lord?" say the disciples--possibly meaning "Where will this judgment take place?" To this his answer is "Wherever there is a situation which calls for it."

Among several instances of the kind of proverbial utterance illustrated by this saying special mention may be made of Job 39:27-30:

Is it at your command that the eagle

mounts up

and makes his nest on high?

On the rock he dwells and makes

his home

in the fastness of the rocky crag.

Thence he spies out the prey;

his eyes behold it afar off.

His young ones suck up blood;

and where the slain are,

there is he. (KJV)