The great EAGLE or griffon-VULTURE — the huge soaring bird of the crags, and the same Hebrew word for both (they are hard to tell apart at altitude, and the biblical writers do not try). ⚠ It carries opposite senses by context: SWIFTNESS and height (God bears Israel 'on eagles' wings,' Exodus 19:4; the enemy 'swoops like an eagle,' Deuteronomy 28:49; Obadiah 4, 'though you set your nest among the stars'); and, as a carrion-VULTURE, DEATH and mourning — Micah 1:16, 'make your baldness wide as the NESHER's,' because the griffon-vulture has a bare, down-covered head that looks shaved. The context, not the word, tells you which bird: the eagle that lifts, or the vulture that waits. → first discussed at Micah 1:16