What is the significance of vultures in the Bible?

nesher, ἀετός. This is supposed to be the bird known as the Griffon Vulture or Great Vulture — the Gyps fulvus of the naturalists — though it may include other species. Its habits agree with those related of the eagle in scripture, and they are plentiful in Palestine. No sooner does an animal fall than these birds congregate in numbers on its carcase, according to Job 9:26; Matt. 24:28. The true eagle is a solitary bird, but vultures are seldom found alone. The expression "beareth them on her wings" exactly describes the way the vultures bear up their young, and teach them to fly. Ex. 19:4; Deut. 32:11. The vulture also agrees with Micah 1:16 which speaks of its baldness, for the vulture's head and neck are without feathers. Its swiftness is proverbial, Lam. 4:19, and it rests on the highest rocks. Job 39:27; Jer. 49:16. In Ezekiel and in the Revelation the living creatures have the eagle character as portraying the swiftness in execution of God's power in creation and judicial government. Ezek. 1:10; Ezek. 10:14; Rev. 4:7.

"Wheresoever the carcase is" (ver. 28). The carcase is the apostate part of the Jewish nation, that which is most offensive to God — only a carcase! lifeless, fit only for judgment, and the judgment will fall on them, and there will be no escaping it.

Matthew 24:28, p. 210. — The words mean that where the object of judgment is, there the executioners will do their work. The Scripture which our Lord probably had in view is Job 39:30 The application of the prophecy is, I believe, to the apostate part of the Jewish nation, which will be as a lifeless carcase when divine vengeance falls upon it at the end of the age. It is scarcely needful to refute those who make the verse to mean the Roman standards, any more than the absurd and profane thought of such as apply the figure of the carcase to the Lord, and of the eagles to the Church.

Then it is said, “Wheresoever the carcase is, there will be gathered together the eagles” (v. 28). Apply this to the Church or to the Christian, and what can you make of it? Is the Church “the carcase”? The Church united to Christ by the Holy Spirit is His body: it is a wondrous privilege and a blessed truth, but is the Church a carcase? Surely not: it is His living body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Nor is the Lord ever regarded as a body dead or merely alive, but as the risen and glorified Head.

The moment you refer “His carcase” to the Jewish people, it becomes strikingly true. The mass of the Jews then will be apostate, and the eagles or vultures who flock there are figures of the divine judgments executed on the guilty people by the hostile nations of the earth. Whatever may be the instruments, they are judgments of God executed at this time. If the Christians were the carcase, they must be the object of the judgment, for there the eagles, figures of those who execute judgment, are gathered together. But this is not the relation of the Lord's coming to the Christian. Nor can any Christians be the eagles or instruments of divine vengeance, any more than the carcase, without abandoning all the truth and character of their calling. The changed saints will go up to meet the Lord, but is He then to be the carcase and are the Church the eagles? In such a scheme, there is only the choice of one evil less or greater than another, which is generally so with an erroneous interpretation. Apply it to the object the Lord had in view and harshness disappears. This is the test of scriptural truth: whenever people press a false interpretation, the general testimony of Scripture is confused and dislocated or contradicted thereby.

This coming of verse 27 is plainly in judgment, as verse 26 confirms. "The carcass," the corrupt condition of both Israel and the nations, will draw "the eagles.," the executors of a well deserved judgment.

To answer the question as to where the one in each case is taken, the Lord spoke of the eagles being gathered together where the body is. In other words, when judgment is called for, God will have the executors of that judgment prepared to carry it out.

61 Where then, in that which the Lord says here, is found positive judgment? It is contained, almost concealed, in these words: "For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered"; a passage which makes allusion, I think, to an expression of the book of Job 39:30, and treats the Jews, who have thus united themselves with the enemies of God, as lost and dead, without wishing to name them anew. It is but a corpse united with the Gentiles, who, haughty as they are, will be judged on earth; for as it is said elsewhere of Babylon: "Strong is the Lord God who judgeth her," likewise strong is He who judgeth them, however they may have despised Him.

The Lord makes some allusion to Job 39:30, though it is a proverbial expression, which one need not go far to find the meaning of. Where the carcase of Israel is, there will the judgment of God descend with the sight and rapidity of an eagle.

But when the Lord had given this solemn intimation, the disciples exclaimed, "Where, Lord?" He had spoken of "two in one bed; one taken, and the other left; two at a mill; one taken, and the other left; two in a field; one taken, and the other left." And they ask, Where will this taking and leaving be? The answer was, "Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." As if the Lord had said, "Where?" how strange a question! When the eagles seek their prey, where do they go? Wheresoever there is a carcase to be found. When these eagle-judgments are abroad in search of the wicked, where will they rest? Of course, wherever any wicked one is to be found. If he be in bed, or at the mill, or in the field, whatever righteous ones may be his companions, even there shall those judgments go; "one shall be taken, and the other left."

The manner of His presence for delivering the Jews is then made known as the guard against their deceits: "For as the lightning cometh," etc. The figures (vers. 27, 28), which illustrate the presence of the Son of Man, convey the thought of sudden, terrible manifestation, and of rapid, inevitable judgment on what is then but a lifeless body before God, whatever may have been its pretensions. Nothing like this is spoken of, however, when Scripture describes the descent of the Lord to receive His risen saints. And what is the result of thus misapplying these verses? The revolting interpretation that "the carcass" means Christ, and "the eagles" the transfigured saints, or the converse, calls for censure, not comment. Nor is it needful to refute the claim set up for the Roman standards. Applied to Israel, all is simple. The carcass represents the apostate part of that nation; the eagles, or vultures, are the figure of the judgments that fall upon it. It is not only that there will be the lightning-like display of Christ in judgment, but the agents of His wrath shall know where and how to deal with that which is abominable in God's sight. The allusion is to Job 39:30.