Chirp

CHIRP [ISBE]

CHIRP - cherp (tsaphaph): "Chirp" occurs in the King James Version marginand the Revised Version, margin of Isa 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 Isa 8:19 we have "chirp"--"wizards, that chirp and that mutter."

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

See CHATTER.

W. L. Walker