A nesher is an eagle (biblical) or vulture (modern) of unspecified gender (c.f. The Hebrew Language Detective on nesher vs. ayit (http://www.balashon.com/2007/06/nesher-and-ayit.html)). The noun is masculine (plural nesharim, as in "on the wings of eagles, canfei nesharim," and the proper feminine would either be nesheret or neshrah - I wasn't able to quickly locate any textual examples because the usages I uncovered just left it masculine (much the same way that "cow" is a generic term for "cows, bulls and steers").
Hebrew grammatical constructs of gender and number do not translate into English cleanly, and a lot of people get confused by things that claim to be "literal." The third of Maimonides principles of faith is that God does not have a body, and is utterly dissimilar from anything which does - but this doesn't stop poets from using human imagery, much as Moses did in the example above.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-09-12 04:57 pm (UTC)Hebrew grammatical constructs of gender and number do not translate into English cleanly, and a lot of people get confused by things that claim to be "literal." The third of Maimonides principles of faith is that God does not have a body, and is utterly dissimilar from anything which does - but this doesn't stop poets from using human imagery, much as Moses did in the example above.