“They shall mount up with wings as eagles. . .” (Isaiah 40:31) Read on to find new meaning to this phrase.

Eagles are mentioned 34 times in the Bible. The lessons we are to learn from them center on their eyesight (which we examined previously), their flying ability, and their parent training.
The Bald Eagle can have a wing span of up to eight feet and can weigh up to 15 pounds. It inhabits areas near large bodies of water where there are plenty of fish to eat and tall trees in which to nest and roost. Bald Eagles mate for life. Females lay one to three eggs annually in the spring, and incubate them for 35 days.
The Body of an eagle is made for flying and for catching prey. It can soar down at 200 miles per hour and grab a fish or rodent with its talons (Is. 40:31; Jer. 4:13). To do these things, the body must be light in weight and very strong. To be lighter, God made eagles with hollow bones. In some places, there are braces inside the bones to make them stronger. But many parts of the bones have nothing inside them but air. The entire skeleton of a Bald eagle weighs about half a pound. Their 7,000 feathers are also very strong. This is because each feather is held together by more than 350 thousand hooks! They are also very light. Together the feathers weigh less than 21 ounces. (Dan 4:13)
When an eagle flaps its wings, most of the power for flying comes from the downward stroke of the wings. For this reason, the muscles that pull the wings down are much larger than the muscles that pull them up. The flight muscles often account for half of the bird’s total weight. (Jer. 49:22)
An eagle can fly faster or slower by changing the position of its wings. But often it will catch ‘thermals’ (warm air rising) and glide effortlessly to great heights. (Prov. 30:19; Job 39:27)
The world’s 59 species of eagles are found on every continent except Antarctica. The eagles in the Bible are not the bald eagle for this species resides only in North America. They could be the imperial eagle, the golden eagle, the booted eagle, or Bonelli’s eagle, all of which reside in the Middle East today. But the eagles we know behave very similarly to these other species and the lessons are the same. Everything about this majestic bird shouts of design!