Crane

Crane translates the Hebrew agur in Isaiah 38:14 and Jeremiah 8:7, though some scholars identify this as the swallow rather than the crane. In Isaiah 38:14, Hezekiah's lament during his illness employs the image of chattering like a crane or swallow as a picture of desperate, inarticulate prayer — cries that go beyond coherent speech. The chattering of small birds is used to express the extremity of grief and weakness.

Jeremiah 8:7 uses the crane's migratory instinct as a pointed contrast with Israel's spiritual obtuseness: the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their migration: but my people know not the judgment of the LORD. The birds follow their God-given instincts precisely and seasonally, while Israel cannot recognize the times of divine visitation and warning. The migratory regularity of birds becomes a rebuke to human moral and spiritual insensitivity.