'OREB (M"I'V; Chald. Nntly ; trapat ; also Luke xii. 24, only). The Hebrew word occurs in Gen. viii. 7 ; Lev. xi. 13 ; Deut. xiv. 14 ; I Kings xvii. ; Job xxxviii. 41, etc., where it is rendered in the A. V. RAVEN. The raven is so generally con founded with the carrion crow, that even in the works of naturalists the figure of the latter has been sometimes substituted for that of the former, and the manners of both have been mixed up to gether. They are, it is true, very similar, belonging to the same Linmean genus, Corms, and having the same intensely black colour ; but the raven is the larger, weighing about three pounds ; has propor tionably a smaller head, and a bill fuller and stouter at the point. Its black colour is more iri descent, with gleams of purple passing into green, while that of the crow is more steel-blue ; the raven is also gifted with greater sagacity ; may be taught to articulate words ; is naturally observant and solitary ; lives in pairs ; has a most acute scent ; and flies to a great height. Unlike the crow, which is gregarious in its habits, the raven will not even suffer its young, from the moment they can shift for themselves, to remain within its haunt , and therefore, though a bird found nearly in all countries, it is nowhere abundant.
Whether the raven of Palestine is the common species, or the Corvus Montanus of Temminck, is not quite determined ; for there is of the ravens, or greater form of crows, a smaller group including two or three others, all similar in manners, and un like the carrion crows (Corvus Corone, Linn.),
which are gregarious, and seemingly identical in both hemispheres. Sometimes a pair of ravens will descend without fear among a flight of crows, take possession of the carrion that may have at tracted them, and keep the crows at a distance till they themselves are gorged. The habits of the whole genus, typified by the name oreb, render it unclean in the Hebrew law ; and the malignant, ominous expression of the raven, together with the colour of its plumage, powers of voice, and solitary habits, are the causes of that universal and often superstitious attention with which mankind have ever regarded it. This bird is the first mentioned in the Bible, as being sent forth by Noah out of the ark on the subsiding of the waters ; and in I Kings xvii. 4, ravens bring flesh and bread at morning and eve to the prophet Elijah. Here the orebinz are manifestly true ravens, whereof a pair would be sufficient to carry the scanty meal of an Oriental abstemious man ; for, independently of the different mode of writing the name, if the word had implied persons residing at a village called Aorabi or Orbo, as presumed by some critics, there would have been no miraculous interposition of the Lord to feed the concealed prophet, but a common, and on this occasion merely a secret resolution, on the part of a few pious men, to give food to a proscribed person.—C. H. S.