There is a lovely allusion to this in Deut. 32:11; and to the figures of what the “eagles’ wings” signify. Indeed the gospel of the glory speaks in this figure with great significance. In this grand and touching passage we read, “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him (Israel), and there was no strange God with him!” The Lord asked Job (39:27-29), “Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off.” On the crag of rock, inaccessible to man, she builds her nest, and rears her young. The time arrives when she would teach her young ones to gaze upon the sun, and soar from the rock themselves. Then she “stirreth up her nest and fluttereth over her young.” The young ones must dare the space mid-air below, and she flings them off the rock! They flutter and sink down toward the abodes of man. They near the fowler’s arrow. She swoops in her might of wing from the height above, she “spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings.” The fluttering eaglet rests its pinions on the tried strength of the parent wing; the fowler’s dart can reach the eaglet’s life only through her own. Thus she teaches them to soar, and rise and gaze, as none other can but she,[^3] on the bright and glorious sun. Thus we are taught as “the way of an eagle in the air” (Prov. 30:19) to walk above the world and to gaze on Christ on high, sure that as He lives we live also. We learn too that “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa. 40:31).
[^3]: It is said that if any of the young cannot through weakness of vision gaze upon the sun, they are rejected from the eagles’ brood.