How many times is owl mentioned in the Bible?
The word owl appears 10 times in the King James Version, in 8 verses. Counting every form (owl, owls), it appears 16 times in 14 verses across 7 of the 66 books. The World English Bible uses owl 12 times (13 with every form).
Owl in the King James Version and the World English Bible
Each form of owl counted in each translation.
| Form | KJV | WEB |
|---|---|---|
| owl | 10 | 12 |
| owls | 6 | 1 |
| Total | 16 | 13 |
First and last mention of owl
And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,
Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.
The verse that uses it most is Leviticus 11:17, 2 times (tied with Deuteronomy 14:16):
And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl,
Where the two translations differ
7 verses match in the KJV but not in the World English Bible, and 1 verse matches only in the World English Bible, usually because the other translation chose a different word there.
Job 30:29: counted in the KJV only
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.
Isaiah 13:21: counted in the KJV only
But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.
But wild animals of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will frolic there.
Leviticus 11:18: counted in the World English Bible only
And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle,
the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey,
Common questions
How many times is owl in the Old Testament and the New Testament?
In the King James Version, counting every form, 16 of the 16 uses are in the Old Testament and 0 in the New Testament. Owl appears in 7 books of the 66 in the King James Version. Isaiah has the most (6), then Leviticus (3) and Deuteronomy (3).
Where is owl first mentioned in the Bible?
The first use in the King James Version is Leviticus 11:16: "And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind," The last is Micah 1:8.
More word counts: trumpet, harp, sackcloth, pearl, wheat, rock, star, rain, or all 484 words.
Counted by Bible Says About from the full public-domain text of the King James Version (1769 edition) and the World English Bible. Verse text only: headings and psalm titles are left out. A word is a run of letters: a hyphenated name like Beer-sheba counts as two, and an apostrophe stays inside its word (LORD'S is one). Matching ignores capital letters. Data compiled 2026-10-22.