CHIRP

cherp (tsaphaph): "Chirp" occurs in the King James Version marginand the Revised Version, margin of Isaiah 29:4, "Thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper (margin, "chirp") out of the dust." The reference is to "the sounds made by wizards and ventriloquists, who imitated the chirping of the bats which was supposed to proceed from the Iower world"; hence, for "peep" of the King James Version in Isaiah 8:19 we have "chirp"--"wizards, that chirp and that mutter."

Figurative: We have also in Isaiah 10:14 the Revised Version (British and American), in a figurative allusion to young birds, "chirped" instead of "peeped."

See CHATTER .

W. L. Walker

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.