8 After that, he released a pigeon וַיְשַׁלַּ֥ח אֶת־הַיּוֹנָ֖ה מֵאִתּ֑וֹ
In v. 7 I turned ha-orev into “the crows”; now I’m turning ha-yona into “a pigeon.”
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
The following verses relentlessly use singular forms in relating to this bird. Unless I intend to claim that v. 11 describes an entire flock of pigeons all returning olive leaves in their mouths, I’m forced to admit that there is just one of these. Does that mean there was just one crow? Perhaps; not certainly. Since העורב “kept going back and forth until the water dried up,” I prefer to picture these birds — perhaps as many as 14 of them — filling the sky above the slowly draining water.
When they took off, we learned from the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament that “the Semitic languages do not distinguish between ravens and crows.” With doves and pigeons, it is not just the Semitic languages but ornithologists themselves who think they are the same: “All the birds we know as either pigeons or doves belong to the same family, Columbidae.” Noah’s bird, of course, was a homing pigeon. Here is Radak (in my Commentators’ Bible translation):
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