聖書には、ジズについての言及はほんの少ししかない。詩篇50:11には「わたしは山のすべての鳥を知り、Zīz śāday(וְזִיז שָׂדַי)はわたしのもの」とあり、詩篇80.11には、「森から来た猪がそれを荒らし、Zīz śādayがそれを食べる。」とある。これらは翻訳でしばしば失われ、ほとんどの英訳では曖昧な「''獣''」として呼ばれ、特異でも鳥でもないものとして言及されている<ref name=Wazana />。ユダヤ教のアガドーは、ジズについてこう言っている<ref>アガドー(Aggadah)とは、ユダヤ教の古典ラビ文学、特にタルムードとミドラシュに出て来る非法律上の説話である。一般に、アガドーは、民話、歴史的逸話、道徳的勧告、ビジネスから医療まで様々な領域での実用的なアドバイスが盛り込まれたラビのテキストの大要である。(Wikipedia:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggadah Aggadah]より)</ref>。
<blockquote>リヴァイアサンが魚類の王であるように、ジズは鳥類の支配者に任命された。名前の由来は、肉の味が''これでもか(zeh)''、''これでもか(zeh)''というほど変わるからだ<ref>ジズは雄のようである。</ref>。ジズはリヴァイアサン並みに巨大だ。その足首は大地にあり、その頭はまさに天に向かって伸びている。</blockquote>
あるとき、船に乗っていた旅人たちが一羽の鳥に気づいた。</blockquote>
It
It once happened that travelers on a vessel noticed a bird. As he stood in the water, it merely covered his feet, and his head knocked against the sky. The onlookers thought the water could not have any depth at that point, and they prepared to take a bath there. A heavenly voice warned them: "Alight not here! Once a carpenter's axe slipped from his hand at this spot, and it took it seven years to touch bottom." The bird the travelers saw was none other than the Ziz. His wings are so huge that unfurled they darken the sun. They protect the earth against the storms of the south; without their aid the earth would not be able to resist the winds blowing thence. Once an egg of the Ziz fell to the ground and broke. The fluid from it flooded sixty cities, and the shock crushed three hundred cedars. Fortunately such accidents do not occur frequently. As a rule the bird lets her eggs slide gently into her nest. This one mishap was because the egg was rotten, and the bird cast it away carelessly.
The Ziz has another name, ''Renanin'', because he is the celestial singer. On account of his relation to the heavenly regions he is also called ''Sekwi'', the seer, and, besides, he is called "son of the nest," because his fledgling birds break away from the shell without being hatched by the mother bird; they spring directly from the nest, as it were. Like Leviathan, so Ziz is a delicacy to be served to the pious at the end of time, to compensate them for the privations which abstaining from the unclean fowls imposed upon them. [...] The creation of the fifth day, the animal world, rules over the celestial spheres. Witness the Ziz, which can darken the sun with its pinions.<ref name="Barnstone2005">{{cite book |last=Barnstone |first=Willis |author-link=Willis Barnstone |title=The Other Bible |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J9aKaGTOQDAC&pg=PA23 |year=2005 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-081598-1 |page=23–24}}</ref><ref name="GinzbergCohen1913">{{cite book |last1=Ginzberg |first1=Louis |author-link1=Louis Ginzberg |last2=Cohen |first2=Boaz |author-link2=Boaz Cohen |title=Bible times and characters from the creation to Jacob |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZLVbAAAAMAAJ |year=1913 |publisher=Jewish Publication Society of America}}</ref>}}