Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
"The voice of the turtle is heard in our land" means turtles (the shelled reptile) can be heard in springtime
"Turtle" here is short for turtledove, a bird, not the reptile.
Song of Solomon 2:12, in every translation this tool compares.
Song of Solomon 2:12 celebrates spring: "the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." That only makes sense as a bird: turtles (reptiles) don't have a "voice" anyone notices, but turtledoves have a distinctive cooing call that returns with the season as a migratory bird. "Turtle" here comes from Latin "turtur," an imitation of that cooing sound, and has nothing to do with shells.
The reptile sense of "turtle" was still fairly new in English when the KJV was translated in 1611, so in that era "turtle" alone, unqualified, defaulted to the bird. Modern readers have it backwards, since the reptile sense has now completely taken over the plain word "turtle."
