SUMMARY
All human effort has limits, but with God people can run and not grow weary; they are given eagles’ wings.
ANALYSIS
Human effort is seen here both in its limits and its possibilities. To be sure, even strong young people eventually grow tired–not to mention those who have been victimized and oppressed–but God gives power to the powerless enabling them to renew their strength and take off like eagles.
In Old Testament thought, the eagle is an uncleanIn Hebrew law many regulations warned against impurity. Unclean things were numerous and included leprosy, menstruating women, dead bodies, shell fish, and pigs. animal (Leviticus 11:13) and cannot be eaten; this text is the only positive eagle reference in the prophetic books. Still, “unclean” does not mean that the eagle is not pronounced “very good” along with the rest of creationCreation, in biblical terms, is the universe as we know or perceive it. Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the book of Revelation (which speaks of end times) the author declares that God created all things and... (Genesis 1:31)–indeed, good enough that both God and MosesProphet who led Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land and received the law at Sinai. can compare God to the eagle (Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:11-12). Just as God bore Israel on eagles’ wings at the first exodus (Exodus 19:4), now, in the second exodus–the return from exile–God’s people are given power to mount up themselves with wings like eagles.
