Biblical Beasts: Whale

Is there any mention of whales in the Bible? Your first reaction might well be, “Of course there is: there’s the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale.” Even if you were trying to be more thorough, you might still think this was a fairly straightforward question to answer in the age of fully searchable texts of Scripture in programs like BibleWorks. However, we soon find that this seemingly simple question is actually rather more complicated. In many English versions of the Bible, it turns out, there is no mention of whales at all! Other translations, on the other hand, do have some references to whales, but none in the book of Jonah! So what’s going on?

Basically, it’s a question of translation: in the case of Jonah specifically, many English translations use the word ‘whale’ when Jesus talks about the sign of Jonah in St Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 12: 40), because the Greek word used there sometimes means whale. It also, however, refers to any large fish or sea-monster, and thus was used by the Greek translators of the Old Testament to refer to the ‘great fish’ of which the Hebrew speaks in the book of Jonah (2: 1). This highlights the care that must be taken in the interpretation of the Bible, because if we only knew the English version, we might think Jesus mistakenly thought a whale was a large fish, whereas in fact, if it’s anyone’s mistake, it’s the translators’.

Indeed, the difficulty of identifying the meaning of words referring to the fauna of the Bible has been a recurring theme in our series on Biblical Beasts. It reminds us that the Scriptures are written in the words of human beings, and present us with all the ordinary challenges that language presents: that is why a ‘scientific’ study of Scripture is useful and important. However, we must never allow such study to distract us from the fact that Scripture is the Word of God, and points beyond the human realities its words usually describe to the divine realities that it reveals: in the end, the importance of the sign of Jonah is not to be found in the question of whether it was a whale or some other sea creature, but in the death and resurrection of Christ, of which Jonah’s re-emergence from the creature is a type.

Biblical Beasts: Vulture

Those parts of the Old Testament canon originally written in Hebrew have a number of words for birds but a significant one among them is ‘nesher’. This bird is described as having magnificent wings and soaring high, of nesting in high rocky outcrops, of having keen eyesight and descending swiftly on its food source. Well, it could be an eagle (see the blog from 20 July) but it could equally be a vulture. In particular it could very well be the Griffon Vulture, also called the Great Vulture, its modern scientific Latin name being Gyps fulvus. It was common in Palestine and indeed is still found all around the Mediterranean. This bird does not correspond to the stereotype we now tend to have of vultures as scruffy, quarrelsome and unintelligent. The Griffon Vulture is a very large bird, being little short of five feet in total length, and the wingspan measuring about eight feet. The adult bird is a yellowish brown colour, augmented by the black quill feathers and the ruff of white down that surrounds the neck. (All photos here are of the Griffon Vulture.)

There are several species of eagle found in Palestine so why argue the case for nesher meaning or including the vulture? Well, because the (Griffon) vulture fulfills all the qualities already ascribed to nesher. And there are further attributes of nesher that eagles do NOT meet that the Griffon vulture (and other vultures) do. Micah 1:16 describes nesher as having a bald head: eagles are feathered on the head but vultures, including the Griffon, are not. It has light down. Nesher is described as feeding on the dead, i.e. carrion (Prov 30:17; Job 39:27-30): again only vultures, and not eagles, do this. Nesher is described as being long-lived, prompting the suggestion that it renews its youth (Ps 103:5): eagles can be long lived but the Griffon exceeds them all – living in the wild typically for at least 40-50 years and in excess of 100 in captivity. The Griffon is known to be intelligent, to care for its young, assisting them in early flight, thus ‘bearing them on their wings’ (cf Ex 19:4; Rev 12:14).

Although vultures are not highly esteemed nowadays (in the west) they had high prestige in the ancient world. It was a symbol of a deity among both the Egyptians and Assyrians, often linked to war. This is partly because they seemed to follow armies and to descend with lightning speed in battles. Indeed, the speed with which they found the dead and their capacity for being present when battles occurred gained them a reputation for foresight, and even a share in divine foresight and insight – and more widely divine knowledge. (All this means that the vulture could lie behind the bird in Ezek 1:10 and, though in a Greek text, in the Book of Revelation 4:7.)

It is all of this that Jesus seems to refer to and draw on when he cites the saying ‘Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather (Matt 18:24). The context is the sudden but very public coming of God at the end of time and in judgment. Vultures, previously tiny specks high in the sky, swoop down suddenly and with devastating effect - and seemingly with divine knowledge. They gather in very obvious numbers. Eagles do not gather like this, but vultures do, and among the vultures, the Griffons then feed in a social manner, not disturbing each other. Jesus clearly had the vulture, not the eagle in mind. This is almost certainly true of the similar phrase in Lk 17:37: there is a gathering of birds though Luke uses ‘soma’ which can mean a living or dead body. The context suggests the same kind of meaning as above: the disciples can be sure that God will come, and with speed and power and thus they should be vigilant and indeed stay awake and spiritually alive. A vulture also fits better in the context of Rev 8:13 than an eagle, ‘seeing’ destruction and presumably also death.

If nesher represent one species of bird (as we understand species) then the Griffon vulture is the only candidate. It is also the vulture that Jesus has in mind. Why then is the eagle and not the (griffon) vulture seen as the great religious bird and symbol of divinity in the Christian tradition? The problems begin with the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew texts into Greek from around 200 BC and later. They sometimes use aetos for nesher. Sometimes they use ‘gups’ but they also use this for other Hebrew bird words, and of seemingly smaller birds. They were attempting some sort of biological classification different to what was in the Hebrew words before them and I wonder how well they knew the Palestinian fauna. The ancient Greeks in general did not always distinguish vultures and eagles, but many translators since then have considered that aetos ought in general to be translated as eagle. (Some note that it means vulture if the reference is to a bird feeding on carrion – but ornithological expertise is often lacking.) Only aetos is used in the New Testament. In Roman and Latin culture the eagle, not the vulture, was considered the bird of prowess and a military symbol of power and this view has spread to modern cultures. In translations, eagle has thus dominated over vulture (often to its complete exclusion), sometimes creating exegetical problems. All seem to have lost sight of the magnificent Griffon Vulture. Perhaps the Hebrews intended to include eagles in some of their references to nesher. But the Griffon Vulture, which they clearly knew about, has to all intents and purposes been ‘lost in translation’. To make matters worse, it is now an endangered species in Israel.

Biblical Beasts: Unicorn

Today unicorns have a rather effeminate, placid reputation. One can see this in children's story books but also in the Harry Potter series, My Little Pony and a recent episode of Glee. This image is rather far removed from the ancient and medieval account of the fictional one-horned horse. It was seen as the fiercest and swiftest of all land creatures and could not be caught by any hunter. The only way to catch one was to put a virgin girl in its path. The unicorn, seeing the maiden, comes to her and puts its head in her lap and falls asleep. This fierce imagery is also used in the bible. In the Book of Numbers, God is described as having the strength of a Unicorn and the ability to tame the beast. The horns of the Unicorn are often used as a symbol of despair and terror in the Psalms and the Book of Job.

It might come as a surprise that unicorns are mentioned in the Bible at all, and this is very understandable. Many English translations of the Old testament translate the Hebrew word רְאֵם (re’em) as Ox. The Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translated the term as μονόκερως (monokeros) and unicornis respectively. The King James Bible also translates the word as the English "unicorn"(The Douai-Rheims opts for rhinoceros).

Nevertheless the unicorn was seen as a rich symbol of Christ by the medieval Church. One bestiary states that:

The unicorn signifies Christ, who was made incarnate in Mary's womb, was captured by the Jews, and was put to death. The unicorn's fierce wildness shows the inability of hell to hold Christ. The single horn represents the unity of God and Christ. The small size of the unicorn is a symbol of Christ's humility in becoming human.

Just as the unicorn has lost much of its edge in pubic perception, so has the person of Jesus Christ. He was not just a nice man, who told nice stories and told everyone 'just be nice'. He was the Son of God. He was a true radical and a true revolutionary. He came not just to change peoples' attitudes and opinions but to change the very nature of the world. Through His death and resurrection Jesus not only restores our nature but elevates to something so much better.

Biblical Beasts: Snake

When one reads the story of the Fall in the book of Genesis, it is of no surprise that snakes have been associated with sin and the devil. In many ways the creature suits this anthropomorphism. For a mammal there is something sinister about it's cold-blooded reptilian ways and mannerisms but I also think that the snake, particularly captures the effects of sin of humanity. The medieval Aberdeen Bestiary declares that "All snakes are coiled and twisted, never straight. It is said that there are as many poisons, deaths and griefs as there are kinds of snakes." The fact that most snakes slither on the ground could also be said to display how through sin humanity has fallen in dignity from its God-given natural elevated and erect state. The snake's lack of true limbs also show how living in sin disables us; it makes us weaker; it limits our ability and opportunity.

Despite all this, the snake also offers a metaphor for solution. Snakes shed their skin by rubbing against rough surfaces, often rocks. We too can "shed our skins" of sins by going to the True Rock, that is Christ. Through him we are made new and freed from the tyranny of sin and death .

Biblical Beasts: Raven

The raven has a rather sinister reputation. Throughout history it has been used as a symbol of the macabre. One has to only think of Poe's poem The Raven, Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta and more recently the Omen trilogy. This association is not limited to the West. In the Koran it is the raven that teaches Cain how to bury his murdered brother Abel and amongst the Inuit people this scavenger is viewed as a 'trickster-god'.

The raven's character in the Judeo-Christian tradition however is far more varied: They are condemned as unclean in the Book of Leviticus; they are Noah's failed scouts at the end of the flood; and one of Kings of the Midianites defeated by Gideon is called "Oreb" (עורב) which means "Raven". On the other hand they also are sent by God to aid and bring food to Elijah. There are further examples within Christianity of the raven acting in a caring and protective way: A raven is said to have protected Saint Benedict by taking away a loaf of bread poisoned by jealous monks after he blessed it. The legend of St. Vincent of Saragossa, the 4th century martyr, states that after St. Vincent was executed, ravens protected his body from being devoured by wild animals, until his followers could recover the body. His body was taken to what is now known as Cape St. Vincent in southern Portugal. A shrine was erected over his grave, which continued to be guarded by flocks of ravens. When the Portuguese king transfered St. Vincent's relics to Lisbon the ravens followed. An event still commemorated on the Coat of Arms of the city

Biblical Beasts: Tortoise

Someone commented that Godzdogz is 'scraping the bottom of the barrel' in having a summer series on Biblical Beasts. Well if that's true we are at the very bottom of that barrel in looking for a biblical beast whose name (in English) begins with the letter 'T'. There are no toads or turkeys and one mention of a tiger (Job 4:11) though most translations render it 'lion'. No tigers in Africa - no tigers in the Bible, perhaps. We have to wait for William Blake's wonderful poem before we meet the tiger as a symbol of divine power although the 'lion of Judah' has a long history even before C.S.Lewis's Aslan appears on the scene.

The tortoise gets a mention (in some translations) in Leviticus 11:29-30. It appears on a list of unclean animals named as follows in the Revised Standard Version: 'these are unclean to you among the swarming things that swarm upon the earth: the weasel, the mouse, the great lizard according to its kind, the gecko, the land crocodile, the lizard, the sand lizard, and the chameleon'. The first 'great lizard' is sometimes translated as the 'tortoise after its kind'. They are the small Leviathans, we might say, lizards and hard shelled creatures that creep along the earth. This family of creatures is fascinating and can be unsettling: there are some beautiful lizards and some startling ones, some tiny tortoises and some enormous ones.

There does not seem to be anything of spiritual or theological interest here although much to interest animal lovers and natural historians. (But that such creatures exist is, of course, a wonderful aspect of creation: they represent some aspect of God's glory.) Chinese mythology imagined the world resting on the back of a great tortoise but no noble task or symbolism is assigned to it in Jewish or Christian tradition. The symbolic ways in which the tortoise has been used are easily understood: his slow and careful progress, as well as his longevity (the oldest recorded lived for 188 years), make him seem like a creature whose approach to life is eminently wise and prudent. He paces himself well, lives temperately, seems to conserve his energy, is discreet and modest in his public appearances - all characteristics that make him a suitable representation of the virtuous person. Modern fantasy stories and films often use the tortoise in this way, as a wise guru who helps the searcher to stop, and think, before proceeding to the next stage of the journey.

Quail

We find two references to Quail in the Old Testament: first, in Exodus chapter 15, and then again in Numbers chapter 11. In both instances God provides the people of Israel with meat in the form of these birds in response to their grumblings and complaints about the hardships of the desert. Yet the two accounts are subtly and interestingly different.

In Exodus Israel is only just beginning its wanderings in the desert. As the people begin to feel the pangs of hunger and thirst they begin to regret their leap from slavery in Egypt to freedom with God. To strengthen them and encourage them on their journey, God provides his people with Manna, bread from heaven and a 'type' of the Eucharist. In addition, he also provides Quail, he provides his people with flesh to eat in the desert. In Exodus, then, the Quail appear as a sign of God's providence and generosity, and also a foreshadowing of the Eucharist and the Incarnation. In the Desert, God gave his people bread from heaven and flesh from the sky in the form of Quail. In the Eucharist, our bread from heaven is the Body and Blood of Christ himself, this is our food for our journey with God.

In Numbers Chapter 11, however, the context is slightly different. Here the people have already received the gift of the Manna, they have already received the bread from heaven, the food for the journey - and they are sick of it. They are bored of this food and once more long for the variety of their diet in Egypt. The sacrifices of freedom are too high. The consolations of slavery much too alluring. Once again God provides responds to the complaints of his people by providing meat in the form of Quail, but this time he promises Israel that they will grow tired of this meat too. He tells Israel: ' You will eat it [meat]....for a month until it comes out of your nostrils and sickens you' (Numbers 11: 20).

Here the Quail represent all the sensual, intellectual and emotional consolations that we turn to in order to avoid the cross of Christ, in order to avoid the sacrifices that love of God and love of neighbour demand. Eventually these consolations become revolting and we must search for another 'fix'. As Augustine puts it, our hearts are restless until they rest in God. This is the hard lesson that the Israelites learnt by enduring the privations of the desert for forty years. It is a lesson that we too must learn if we are to fully embrace our freedom as children of God and finally dispel all thoughts of returning to the slavery of sin.

Biblical Beasts: Pig

Pigs do not appear to have a very high standing in the Bible. They were regarded as unclean. Leviticus 11:7-8 spells this out: “You will regard the pig as unclean, because though it has a cloven hoof, divided into two parts, it is not a ruminant. You will not eat the meat of these or touch their dead bodies: you will regard them as unclean.” It is interesting that the reason given is not based on the animal having dirty habits – like wallowing in mud, or grunting, or as linked to any parasites or medical conditions coming from eating them. It is, of course possible, that these lie in the background but it is presented as a divine commandment.

Observing such laws helped to set the Jews apart as distinct from the people about them and thus in a unique relation to a unique God. Such ritual purity laws were to point to holiness, the holiness of God and of how a person needed to become holy (clean) to enter God’s presence. It is all of this that is picked up in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). The son has moved so far from the moral and ritual commitment to his Jewish faith, he is so far outside of it and so unclean, that he is reduced to herding pigs. This means he is working for a Gentile as Jews had no use for pigs and would not keep them.

More importantly, clean animals are those that can be offered to God in ritual worship, i.e. as animal sacrifices. Unclean ones cannot be so offered, and this was commonly because neighbouring peoples offered them to their own gods. The Hittites were known to sacrifice pigs to their gods. Such use of pigs lay at the heart of the infamous Abomination of Desolation and the persecution of the Jews linked to it as narrated in the Books of the Macabees, around 165 BC. Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the (Greek) Seleucid king of the area sought to impose pagan worship on the Jews: he erected a statue of Zeus in the temple on the Jewish altar and offered sacrifices of pigs to it (1 Macc 1:47). Jews were then made to eat the flesh of pigs - and most probably of such sacrificed pigs - or lose their lives. This image of sacrilege – the Abomination of Desolation - is recorded also in the Book of Daniel, and the accompanying history was still very potent in the time of Jesus, and this image featured in Jesus’ own apocalyptic teaching (Mk 13:14). Thus another foreign power, usually seen as the Romans in the first place, would seek to impose a false religion on God’s people and to punish non-compliance with death. Jesus assures his disciples that he has power over such forces.

The other famous pig incident in the New Testament may have some connection with this. It concerns the exorcism of a man and the casting of his demons into a herd of 2000 pigs that rush into the sea and are drowned (Mk 5 and parallels in Mt 8 and Lk 8). The devils recognise the holiness of Jesus – calling him Son of the Most High – and name themselves as Legion, a term specific to Roman military use, and meaning a fighting group of 6000 men. Jesus will not tolerate their presence but they hope to stay in the area and ask that he will allow them to go into the unclean pigs. But this does not work out and the demons end up in the sea, a realm under God’s authority, and something over which Jesus has specifically exercised his authority in the previous chapter.

There are a number of military allusions in the story and these suggest that the authority and power of Jesus is not just over evil spirits but over the military forces, and forces which may serve such spirits and even the devil. In addition to ‘legion’, the word used to describe the ‘herd’ is often used of military groupings. They ‘charge’ down the hill and thence into the water. Their drowning brings to mind the drowning of the Egyptian army which pursued Moses and the Israelites across the Red Sea.

But what of the pigs? The demons do not want to destroy the pigs. So it seems better to consider that the pigs cannot tolerate the presence of the demons within them. They end up assisting the plan of Jesus to overcome the demonic powers. The demons were wrong in calculating that the pigs, perhaps because they were unclean, would tolerate their presence. As such the pigs serve the purpose of Jesus, not that of the demons. This again shows the scale of the authority and power of Jesus in comparison with the ultimate powerlessness of the demons. Their destruction perhaps points to a goodness in the pigs, a natural resistance to evil, given they are not moral agents.

It is interesting to note that not long after this (Mk 7), Jesus declared all foods clean, stressing the spiritual and moral foundation for real holiness and cleanliness. All of creation is good and serves God’s purpose. Until Christ came and revealed and made available the full means of holiness, some animals had been declared unclean to help the Jews separate themselves from the evil around and within them. It does not reflect the moral or ontological state of the animals as such. Now that era is past. In the end the pig is declared clean. It has always served God’s purposes and one can assume or at least hope that it will find its place in the new earth at the end of time.

Biblical Beasts: Ostrich

The ostrich is mentioned twice in the bible, once in Lamentations and once in Job. In Lamentations, the Lord complains that his people have become heartless like the ostrich, and in Job the Lord gives a caricature of the ostrich as a bird which waves its wings proudly but cannot fly. Taken together, these two passages can be understood to say something about humanity in general. Just as a bird’s freedom depends on its wings, so a man’s freedom depends on his rationality. In the case of the ostrich, we see that having wings is not sufficient for a bird to have the freedom to fly, yet the ostrich seems joyfully oblivious to the way in which most birds use their wings and the ostrich doesn’t seem to care that it is flapping its wings in vain.

Similarly, man’s freedom depends on being a rational animal, but being rational is not sufficient for man to be completely free. Man’s use of his reason can be like the ostrich’s use of its wings. Sinful man can think as much as he likes and yet can be totally unaware of and unable to reach the heights to which sinless man reaches, which is nothing other than the beatific vision in heaven. The story of our redemption is how Jesus Christ not only shows us what we can do if by grace we were to be cleansed from sin, but he can actually give us the grace to live without sin. So rather than being like ostriches which can’t fly, our nature is transformed to be like the birds that have the freedom of the heavens.

Biblical Beasts: Moth

Death's Head Moth

Moths are far less romantic than their flamboyant cousins the butterflies. They seem to prefer the twilight zones to bright sunshine and usually make their presence felt by eating our clothes. Not surprisingly they get a bad press in the Bible. The best known text in which they appear is Matthew 6:19-20 (see also Luke 12:33) which contrasts earthly with heavenly treasure. Earthly treasure is destroyed by rust and moth, heavenly treasure is secure from such things. You should lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, says Jesus, a treasure that will last.

The consuming power of the moth is mentioned in many Old Testament texts including some of those already mentioned in our earlier post on the insect (some translations read 'moth' where others have the more generic 'insect'). Sometimes another destroying agent is mentioned as a partner in crime with the moth: rust, worms, or dry rot (see Isaiah 50:9; 51:8; Job 13:28; James 5:2). The moth gets a mention in a complaint of Job (27:13ff) as he struggles with the fact that his experience contradicts any easy alliance of good with prosperity and evil with misfortune. The text, however, seems corrupt (Job 27:18) for it might refer to the house a spider makes (easily destroyed) or to the house a moth builds (i.e. in somebody's clothing).

Psalm 39 chillingly describes God as a moth devouring all that a person has come to treasure: it seems clear that it belongs with Job 27 as a lament of the good person at the misfortunes of life. Such wisdom teaching constitutes the background to Jesus' teaching about the two kinds of treasure.

Silk Moth

It is difficult to warm to the moth. As a nocturnal creature it is associated with hidden or secret knowledge. It belongs to the realm of the moon and so sometimes appears with bats, owls, and other creatures of the night. The 'Death's Head Moth' is an obvious candidate to star as one of the terrors of the night. The silk moth on the other hand, when still a larva or caterpillar, is of great economic significance since it is the world's primary producer of silk. Its capacity to do so is attributable to the human beings who first domesticated and bred the silk worm, in China, more than 5000 years ago.

Biblical Beasts: Leviathan

The first question I suspect many people will have about a leviathan is, 'What is it?' There is, it must be said, no simple answer to this question. The earliest translation of the Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint, calls it a dragon or serpent, while the Latin Vulgate sometimes follows the Greek, and sometimes leaves the Hebrew name, Leviathan. This was the approach adopted by the translators of the King James version of the Bible, which, with its huge influence on the English language, has given us the word Leviathan.

Photograph by Gianfranco Lanzetti

This doesn't get us an awful lot closer to understanding what one is though. Modern scholars have suggested it might be a crocodile, or perhaps a whale, but in fact we can see a certain significance in leaving the name untranslated. It represents something more than an ordinary animal, since it is clear from the mention of Leviathan in Isaiah 27:1 that this animal has some kind of apocalyptic significance. We could perhaps identify it, for example, with the dragon which features so prominently in the book of Revelation.

In any case, the Leviathan does seem to be some kind of sea creature or, as we might say, sea monster, and this perhaps gives us the most useful key to understanding its significance. In some ancient Near Eastern creation myths, the creation of the world was the result of a battle of the creator god with an ancient and powerful sea monster: it symbolised a power opposed to that of the creator. In the Psalms, though, the Psalmist sings to God of the Leviathan as 'the monster you made to play with' (Psalm 103:26). For the Lord, creation was not the result of some cosmic struggle, but a completely free act of love: thus everything in the world is the object of his delight, even sea monsters, or crocodiles, or, in short, Leviathan.

Biblical Beasts: Kid

There are a surprising number of ways in which kids are used in the Old Testament. You’ve probably all heard of the Passover lamb, but in fact it was also permissible to eat a kid at the Passover. Kids could also be used for burnt offerings, fellowship offerings, and sin offerings.

Amongst the more morally dubious uses for a kid was Jacob’s deception of his blind father Isaac by wearing the skins of kids so that he could receive the blessing that was meant for his brother Esau. Then there’s the rather bizarre story of Judah offering a kid as payment to a prostitute who happened to be his daughter-in-law Tamar. But the really big no-no when it comes to the use of a kid is cooking a kid in its mother’s milk. From this prohibition comes the restriction on Koshar food of not eating meat with dairy products.





It is not entirely clear why there should be such a restriction, but one interesting theory is the claim that an essential part of Judaism was a desire for clear separation and the abhorrence for mixtures. In Hebrew, the word for separation, kadosh, also means holy, and so practices such as not eating a kid in its mother’s milk could be symbolic of Israel’s call to holiness. It’s understandable why this particular combination might be objectionable to Jews. The kid once it had been drained of its blood in preparation to be cooked was very definitely dead, whereas milk was given to a kid to give it life. This was unacceptable to a holy people who were aware of the sharpest separation that existed on God’s earth between the realm of the living and the domain of the dead. But equally we can see why this prohibition should have been lifted under Christianity, for the separation between death and life has now been overcome by Christ’s Passion - holiness is no longer about separation, but about being united in Christ.

Biblical Beasts: Jackal

For millennia the jackal has played a less than wholesome part in the mythology and literature of the east, near east and Africa. Varying species and subspecies of jackal make this a hard animal to portray accurately, and indeed, this is just the case we face in biblical descriptions. There is, to date, much confusion over when exactly a jackal is being referred to in the bible, particularly given that European translations often substituted instead that much more familiar animal, the fox. It would seem there are three possibilities in Hebrew for the jackal, none exclusive; shû'ãl, 'the digger'; 'íyyîm, 'the howlers'; and tãn, 'the stretcher'. Endearing titles are they not?

So why does the jackal get such a bad press? Well, the wily and cunning nature of the fox is equally applicable to the jackal, indeed the chief difference seems to be that the jackal is a more social animal. It conceals itself by day and issues forth at night, in pairs or larger packs, to prey upon the weak or defenceless creatures it encounters, or to scavenge among the refuse or crops of mankind. The jackal will eat just about anything, but only fight that which it can easily overpower. In the ancient world it was renowned for devouring the dead and dying that lay strewn on the battlefield after dark. “They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals” (Psalm 63:10).

Spiritually speaking, the jackal represents one whose worldly cunning and indifference to the plight of others, is salient. The jackal waits, and watches, and when the time is opportune and the risk slight, he pounces; his aim is survival – at any cost. Understandable for a beast of the field, but for mankind these are not honourable traits. The jackal therefore arises time and time again in scripture to represent the cunning and duplicity of men; the selfishness of one who prowls unseen by night and hides by day. One whose deeds are hidden, whose motivations remain secret; one who prefers the wastelands that hide ill deeds, and who refuses to live openly in the light.

Well, you can imagine if interviewed a jackal simply saying ‘we have to earn a living somehow’, and quite right. But for us, we should not indulge in cunning or trickery, or band together to prey on the defenceless. We should not strip others of what is rightfully theirs and then seek to hide ourselves away. We should aim that our deeds can be held before others and not seek the cloak of darkness and night. Indeed, remember that; “You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness” (1 Thessalonians 5:5).

Biblical Beasts: Insect

Three of the ten plagues of Egypt involved insects, a plague of gnats (Exodus 8:16ff), a plague of flies (Exodus 8:20ff), and a plague of locusts (Exodus 10:1ff). On the one hand insects represent something weak, fragile, and easily crushed. On the other hand they represent something mighty and strong, capable of appearing in great numbers and of bringing about great destruction. There are references in the Bible to both aspects, e.g. Isaiah 51:6; Hosea 5:12; Job 4:19 and James 5:2.

Many phobias are connected with insects because of their strange appearance and their capacity to insinuate themselves into people's hair, clothing and food. Many insects bite, sting and poison. We know the withering scorn with which a person can sometimes insult somebody else by calling him an 'insect'. It is not exactly a pet name implying as it does that the person insulted is disgusting and to be dismissed.

In ancient Israel most insects were regarded as abominable and not to be eaten except those 'that have legs above their feet with which to leap on the earth' (Leviticus 11:21). So locusts, crickets and grasshoppers could be eaten - not that they would be everybody's first choice from the menu - but no other winged insect with four feet. The Book of Deuteronomy seems to remove the exceptional clause saying simply 'all winged insects are unclean for you' (Deut 14:19). It is not immediately obvious where the criteria to distinguish clean and unclean animals originated: presumably it was at least partly to do with hygiene, health and aesthetic considerations.

The Hebrews felt like insects compared with the inhabitants of Canaan (Numbers 13:33), a feeling that provokes yet another crisis for Moses and the other leaders of the people. It is an effective way of describing the feeling of impotence and insignificance: a single insect is of no great importance and is easily destroyed (Job 25:6). David challenges Saul, saying that he (David) is not 'a flea', in other words not insignificant (1 Samuel 24:14). The prophet Nahum on the other hand uses the imagery to illustrate the cowardice and unreliability of Israel and its leaders (3:17).

Insects make up one of the great classes of creation (Psalm 148:10) and some science fiction prophesies a time when insects will rule the world. In the Bible, however, they figure for the most part in a negative and paradoxical way: one insect alone is of little or no account but where they turn up in numbers they are formidable.

Biblical Beasts: Horse

In psalm 147:10 there is this striking line:

His [The Lord's] delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man

Elsewhere in the Bible, horses are linked to chariots (as in Zechariah 6), or to the horsemen of the Apocalypse. In every case the horse is a symbol of power, speed, and strength, and even today we still refer to "horsepower" to rate the performance of motorized engines; the greater the horsepower, the more powerful the engine. In the Scriptures, horses are thus depicted as powerful instruments of war and destruction, and in the Apocalypse they are linked to violence, divine judgement, and terror.

However, the psalmist reminds us that the Lord does not delight in any of this. Almighty God does not delight in might, whether coming from beasts or from man. Thus he delights neither in the strength of the horse nor in the legs, i.e., the strength, of a man. As we see in the example of Christ, ours is not a God who uses violence or unleashes cosmic powers to force his will, or accomplish his mission. The Lord does not wish to use might and force to restrain us, and make us do good. For our God is source and ground of our free acts, and he delights in our freedom. So, as it is said, one can bring a horse to the water but one cannot make it drink.

Rather, the Lord uses the gentle and tender persuasiveness of love, helping us by his transforming grace to know and understand his goodness, and to love and desire him, the good, for his own sake. Thus the psalmist also says in psalm 32:9, "Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not keep with you". One who is made to do good, needing bridle and bit, as it were, does not have virtue but obligation. He does not love but lives in servile fear.

But what the Lord does delight in, and what he desires for us so that we may follow him and have eternal life, is to have trust (Psalm 32:9) and hope (psalm 147:11) in his steadfast love. For it is only this reliance on God and on the strength and power of his love that will save mankind. We are not to rely on human power or our trappings of power (horses, cars, money, degrees, prestige etc), but to learn from Jesus, the only Strong One who saves. Depending on Christ is not the servitude of bridle and bit, nor is it to lack understanding. It is coming under the gentle yoke of trust, hope, and love. As Jesus says: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Mt 11:29-30).

Biblical Beasts: Goat

Goats do no not have the best reputation. They have come to be associated with the devil and Satanism. Much of the goat's diabolic symbolism is linked to its behaviour. Isidore of Seville describes the goat as "a lascivious animal; it likes to butt heads and is always ready to mate. Because of its lust its eyes are slanted (square pupils). The nature of goats is so hot that their blood can dissolve diamonds". The goat's reputation is also not really helped by Christ's description of the last judgement, where the goats are put to the left and banished to hellfire.

However, one should not blacklist the grumpy goat. Both scripture and Christian writers have found much that is good. Medieval bestiaries often see the goat as a symbol of Christ in creation:

The goat's love of high mountains represents Christ, who also loves high mountains, that is, the prophets, angels and patriarchs. As the goat feeds in the valleys, so does Christ in the church, where good works are his food. The sharp eyesight of the goat shows the omniscience of God and his perception of the tricks of the devil.

It is no surprise that the goat could be held in such esteem. There are over a hundred references to the animal in the bible and the majority are either positive or neutral: they are fit to eat, they are kosher. Furthermore goats were slaughtered for honoured guests (as they still are) amongst the people of the Middle East. They were very much part of the temple system. The hair of goats was used to make a curtain for the Ark of the Covenant, the dwelling place of the Lord. They were also often offered as sacrificial sin and peace offerings at the altar. Most importantly on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, two goats were brought to the Temple. one to be sacrificed and the other to be cast into the wilderness, symbolically carrying the sin of the community. This, of course, is the origin of the term 'scapegoat'. This special annual event points toward the true Day of Atonement, Good Friday, when Jesus takes all sin upon Himself on the cross. He is not only the Lamb of God, but the Scapegoat of humanity.

Biblical Beasts: Fox

My Grandfather grew up on a farm but spent the vast majority of his life living in Manchester. He had very definite views on foxes. Ideally they were to be shot. He regretted the difficulty in executing such a policy in a densely populated urban area. He had some sympathy with those who wanted to hunt foxes for sport. He had no time for anyone who thought of foxes as anything other than vermin.

My grandfather would, then, have approved of the words sung by the bride in the Song of Songs: 'Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vineyard, for the vineyard is in blossom' (Song of Songs 2:15). In the Old Testament, a vineyard is often the symbol of Israel. The people of God are in bloom, the Bridegroom has come. The foxes, the thieves that vandalise this vineyard, must be cleared away so that the vineyard can bear much fruit. The foxes here represent our sins, all we do to resist the Word of God.

In Luke's gospel we again have the behaviour of the fox contrasted with the Kingdom of God. 'Foxes have holes ... but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head' (Luke 9:58). The vulnerable Christ walks in the light, and during his public ministry relies on his creatures for hospitality. The fox, in contrast, comes out to steal what is not his and then hides in the darkness of a hole. Jesus offered his life as a gift, and gave the human beings the great honour of giving him a gift. He accepted and allowed his creatures, those that loved him, to care for him. The fox receives no such gift and is reduced to raiding bin bags for food. Where Jesus built community by giving and receiving, the fox antisocially steals and damages. This is why my Granddad wanted to shoot them.

Biblical Beasts: Eagle

The image of an eagle in flight is one that strikes us with both its power and its gracefulness: there is a certain sense of effortless superiority. The significance of this image has not been lost on the many peoples of the world for whom the eagle was a symbol of power and authority: not only the Romans and their European successors, but also the Persians, Egyptians and Ottomans used it as a symbol of political or military power.

In the Old Testament, too, we frequently find the eagle used as an image. It symbolises speed and suddenness (e.g Lam 4: 1; Job 9: 26; Deut 28: 49), but also safety and freedom from persecution: the eagle is seen as being free from predators because it can fly higher than anything that might attack it or its young. This is the image we find in the well-known passage in Deuteronomy, where we hear of the Lord’s care for his people Israel: ‘Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions the Lord alone did lead him’ (Deut 32: 11-12).

Thus, for the people of Israel, too, as for the Romans and others, the eagle is a symbol of power; however, it does not represent any kind of human power, to which there will always be limits. Rather, the seemingly limitless height of the eagle’s flight, its grace combined with its great strength, pointed them to the Lord their God.

The image of an eagle is also found in the apocalyptic prophecies of Ezekiel (e.g. 1: 10), Daniel (e.g. 7: 4) and the Apocalypse (e.g. 4: 7), as one of the four faces of the living creatures shown to them: these visions have been applied in Christian tradition to the four evangelists who mediate the Word of God, and it is striking that in this context too it is the unbounded flight of the eagle which is significant. For the eagle is associated with St John, whose Gospel, like the soaring flight of the eagle, points our minds heavenward, to the mystery of God himself.

Biblical Beasts: Dove

In the last decade it has become rather popular to release doves at funerals. Whilst I personally find this a rather vulgar novelty, it does have some grounding in the funeral practices of early Christians. There are many examples in the Roman Catacombs of sepulchres marked with a dove and the Greek inscription "ΕΙΡΗΝΗ"(peace). This is of course a prayer for the peace of the deceased's soul but throughout the centuries the dove became associated with civil peace. This association with peace is never mentioned explicitly but many references point towards this connotation.

Doves were offered as sacrifice by the Jews pointing towards the peace between God and his people in the temple system. A dove was also the bird that brought the first news to Noah of the ending of the flood. The abating of the waters was the first step towards a return to peace between God and his creation. The olive branch carried back to the ark by the dove is also a foreshadowing of the the full realisation of this peace: the Christ, the anointed one.

We see this most clearly during the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. All four evangelists describe the descending Holy Spirit as being like a dove. True peace is found in the person of Jesus Christ and being open to the Holy Spirit. If we live in Christ we not only have peace within ourselves but with each other.

Biblical Beasts: Cow

The cow is the female of many animals but we usually take the term to refer to the most domesticated of farm animals, the one pictured on the left. She grazes in fields all over the world and supplies most of our milk and meat. When God created the land animals, the 'cattle' get special mention (Genesis 1:24). Again, it need not necessarily refer to what we now understand by that term: many kinds of bison, buffalo, and wildebeeste might be included.

There is one significant mention of a cow in the New Testament. Hebrews 9 speaks of the infinitely superior value of the blood of Christ in contrast with the blood-offerings of the old law. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer served to sanctify defiled persons as regards 'the purification of the flesh', it says. How much more then will the blood of Christ, the perfect sacrifice, purify consciences from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrews is referring to the 'ceremony of the red heifer' about which we read in the Book of Numbers, chapter 19. This was a kind of scape-cow ceremony in which the young animal was killed outside the camp, its blood used to sanctify the tent of meeting, its remains burned, and its ashes mixed with water for rites of purification. It seems like a primitive ritual for removing impurity and sin, but Hebrews is suggesting that it be seen as a type of the sacrifice that was to come, the self-offering of Christ, who in truth takes away the sins of the world.

Already in Genesis 15:9 a young cow or heifer is included among the animals sacrificed by Abram as he seals the covenant God has made with him. The Book of Deuteronomy explains how a heifer is to be sacrificed in atonement for innocent blood whenever a human being is found lying dead in the countryside and nobody knows how they have died (21:1-9). The First Book of Samuel testifies that the heifer remained susceptible to being sacrificed (16:2). There is an echo of this in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), which I once heard called the parable of the unsuspecting calf. Here once again it is the young cow that gives its life as part of a celebration of reconciliation and restoration.