09/08/2022
Why does the world connect “doves” with “peace”? Nowhere in the Bible do the words peace and dove show up in the same verse. Yet the iconic picture of a dove with a branch in its beak is deeply rooted in our minds as a symbol of peace.
The Dove of Salvation
This symbol harkens back to the first time a dove shows up in the Tanakh. Noah had been floating on the waters of the flooded earth and when the time was right he took action:
Genesis 8:7-12
After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven. It kept flying back and forth until the waters had dried up from the earth.
Then Noah sent out a dove [ha-yonah] to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove [ha-yonah] found no place to rest her foot, and she returned to him in the ark, because water still covered the surface of the whole earth. So he reached out his hand and brought her back inside the ark.
Noah waited seven more days and again sent out the dove [ha-yonah] from the ark. And behold, the dove [ha-yonah] returned to him in the evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.
And Noah waited seven more days and sent out the dove [ha-yonah] again, but this time she did not return to him.
This dove brought Good News… the news that they were saved. She is an emblem of Salvation because humans could live on the earth once again, as they were meant to. This was a sign of completion, a sign of peace. God had restored and redeemed His people.
