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The Use of Animal Imagery in the Psalms and Wisdom Literature of Ancient Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Katharine J. Dell
Katharine J. Dell
Affiliation:
The Divinity School, St John's Street CambridgeCB2 1TW E-mail: [email protected]
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Extract

The Old Testament is rich in animal imagery. There has been a considerable amount of work done on the imagery connected with animal sacrifice and on the theological significance of this, but little work done on the wider use of animal imagery in the Old Testament. To attempt to document and review this for the whole Old Testament is beyond the scope of this article, but what I wish to do is to focus on a particularly neglected area—the use of animal imagery in the psalms and wisdom literature of ancient Israel. I have divided the material mentioning animals in the books of Psalms, Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes into seven categories, which I believe are helpful for defining the material but necessarily involve some overlap. The first three categories are concerned with animals as seen from a human viewpoint. They involve humans looking at the world and attempting to illuminate and prescribe human behaviour on the basis of what is observed of animal behaviour. The last three categories involve God and his relationship with the created world, with humanity and with animals. Again this is expressed from a human standpoint, but very often the limitations of the human quest for understanding is stressed. The middle and bridging category is the simple observation of animal behaviour which seems to me to go some way towards counterbalancing the others which are inevitably humanocentric and theocentric respectively.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , August 2000 , pp. 275 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2000

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References

1 See Houston, W., Purity and monotheism: clean and unclean animals in biblical law (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992)Google Scholar. See also, Bodenheiraer, F. S., Animal and Man in Bible Lands (Leiden: Brill, 1960, pp. 203–213)Google Scholar—a section on animal sacrifices in the Bible.

2 Many of the books and articles on animals in the Old Testament involve the classification of biblical animals, e.g. F. S. Bodenheimer, ‘Fauna’ in Interpreters' Bible Dictionary, 1962, pp. 246–56 and in more depth in Animal and Man in Bible Lands, Leiden: Brill, 1960 which contains much material of a detailed zoological nature, but also an interesting appendix on ‘The Old Testament and its Animals’, pp. 196–202; Firmage, E., ‘Zoology (Fauna)’ in The Anchor Bible Dictionary VI (New York, 1992, pp. 1109–1167)Google Scholar; Feliks, J, The Animal World of the Bible (Tel Aviv: Sinai, 1962)Google Scholar. However there is little material that explores attitudes towards animals in the Old Testament rather than simply classification of them. The most helpful exploration of animal imagery in the bible and beyond in rabbinic tradition is by Schochet, E. J., Animal Life in fewish Tradition: Attitudes and Relationships (New York: KTAV, 1984)Google Scholar, art One in particular. Also Feliks, Y., Nature and Man in the Bible (London; Jerusalem; New York: Soncino Press, 1981)Google Scholar explores particular passages concerned with the interaction between nature, including animals, and human beings. For a popular, Christian treatment see Eaton, J., The Circle of Creation: Animals in the Light of the Bible (London: SCM Press, 1995)Google Scholar, especially chapters 3 and 4.

3 I am confining my discussion here to the three wisdom books of the Old Testament, Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes. On a wider definition of wisdom one might wish to include the extra-biblical wisdom books of Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon, some wisdom psalms, possibly even the Song of Songs, a book rich in animal imagery (see Feliks, Y., Nature and Man in the Bible, pp. 270–274 on the faunal motif in the Song of Songs).Google Scholar

4 Job is being portrayed in the Prologue as a patriarchal figure; however this reference to does not assist this picture as it is questionable whether there were domesticated camels in Israel in patriarchal times—by the time the author of Job was writing however they were probably more common.

5 I am using the RSV translation in this article and commenting on some of the less common Hebrew words for various animals. There are methodological problems in identifying biblical animals. Hope, E. R., ‘Animals in the Old Testament—Anybody's Guess?’ Bible Translator 42 (1991), pp. 128–132CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that the best approach is to start from our knowledge of the animals that lived in the area and period as evidenced both from archaeological findings and from their prominence at the time. However, one problem is that our knowledge of biblical animals is limited, and certainly those who translated the bible had even less knowledge than we have today. Another approach is a purely etymological one, as applied to birds, for example, by Driver, G. R., ‘Birds in the Old Testament’, PEQ 87 (1955), pp. 5–20, pp. 129–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but this is seen as an inadequate method purely on its own. We also need to acknowledge the fact that the bible has been read by successive generations in different habitats and so has been interpreted afresh in those new contexts to be comprehensible to those readers. See discussion and examples in Bodenheimer, F. S., ‘Fauna’ in IDB, pp. 246–247.Google Scholar

6 Schochet argues that the usefulness of animals to human beings is their prime role in the Hebrew Bible and that there is a practical rather than an ethical purpose behind the material. I would argue that this is too simplistic a view and that animals have their own place in God's world apart from their subservience to humans. Wild animals are clearly excluded from this ‘useful’ category and yet in wisdom literature, especially in Job, there is an emphasis on them too.

7 Hebrew: referring to a sheep of older than one year and hence with a fleece to be made into clothing; cf. Job 31:19–20.

8 Hebrew probably to be identified with the Egyptian asp, a large variety, not generally known in Israel.

9 Hebrew meaning slug or snail. This is the only reference in the Bible to a snail, which is otherwise unknown in biblical times. argues, Feliks in Nature and Man in the Bible, pp. 191–194Google Scholar that the snail here is best identified with the yellow snail which has no shell. Its surface is always moist and it leaves a mucous trail at night.

10 See discussion of the animal and plant imagery in this psalm, the animal imagery being used in particular of the wicked, in Feliks, Y., Nature and Man in the Bible, pp. 191–194.Google Scholar

11 See discussion of this verse in Feliks, Y., Nature and Man in the Bible, pp. 233–235Google Scholar. He sees the phrase ‘They make their tongue sharp’ to have a double reference, first a metaphorical one to the evil speech of the wicked and second a literal one to the bifurcated tongue of the serpent which is sharpened as it darts in and out of the serpent's mouth. It was the tongue that was thought at that time to deliver the fatal bite, although we now know that the serpent has fangs which serve that function.

12 Hebrew , a rare word for ‘viper’. Feliks, Y., Nature and Man in the Bible, argues that a poisonous spider fits the context better here (p. 235).Google Scholar

13 There is a wide variety of terms for lion in the Old Testament—less common are and , the former a poetic usage and the latter a poetic name for a fullgrown lion.

14 Hebrew to be identified with the Arabic ‘af’ an which is the Carpet viper, identified by a pink tongue rather than a black one.

15 Schochet argues that this denotes human superiority over the animals (p. 11), but this is clearly not the whole picture.

16 Schochet makes the point that whilst some animals symbolise only one aspect of human nature, such as the worm symbolising worthlessness, and whilst some are only used in a derogatory way, such as dogs, and others only in a positive way, e.g. doves, most animal imagery is used in a broader way. He writes, ‘But as a rule biblical imagery declines to generalize about animal species and refrains from presenting specific fauna in either totally laudatory or totally deprecatory terms. Few creatures are depicted as being totally beneficent or wholly evil, and most species function in a dual capacity for illustrative and poetic purposes’ (p. 39)Google Scholar.

17 Schochet writes, ‘The dog is one of the few animals almost invariably spoken of in negative and derogatory terms. There apparently was little personal relationship between biblical man and the dog’ (pp. 37–38).Google Scholar

18 The meaning of the Hebrew is extremely uncertain in this verse.

19 Hebrew thought by Driver, G. R., ‘Birds in the Old Testament’, PEQ 87 (1955), pp. 5–20, pp. 129–140CrossRefGoogle Scholar to refer to a variety of owl.

20 Hebrew is another word for viper, this time the common Palestinian viper.

21 Hebrew refers to ants in general, but especially to the Harvester ant which harvests grain within its nests.

22 Hebrew reads ‘fool’. This requires emendation to stag.

23 In fact is better translated ‘coney’, referring in all probability to the Syrian coney which lives amongst rocks.

24 See Longon, J. M., An exegelical understanding of the fauna of Job 38:39–39:30 based upon the concept of the gegenwelt in the iconography of the ancient Near East (MA thesis, Berkeley, 1992)Google Scholar. Longon argues that the ten strange animals of the first divine speech in Job were chosen explicitly to elicit a sense of mystery and intrinsic worth and to counter an attitude, found in the ancient Near East as a whole, that such animals were worthless, often ugly, certainly hostile beasts ripe for human exploitation.

25 The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain here.

26 Even Schochet is forced to admit on quoting this verse that ‘Scripture admits that fauna can, at times, possess a sensitivity superior to that of their human counterparts’ (p. 56).

27 See discussion of animal life in God's reply to Job in Feliks, Y., kature and Man in the Bible, pp. 259–269.Google Scholar

28 See discussion in Feliks, Y., Nature and Man in the Bible, pp. 238–239Google Scholar. Young ravens are known for their insatiable appetites and the parents regarded as insufficient providers hence the thought that it must be God's care that allows them to reach adulthood.

29 Hebrew here venomous serpent, elsewhere dragon or sea monster. The reference can both be to a mythological creature and to any large water animal.

30 Hebrew lit: animal of big stature

31 See Schochet, E. J., Animal Life in Jewish Tradition: Attitudes and Relationships, KTAV, New York, 1984, pp. 35–36Google Scholar on the rich imagery used for God where he cites this example. He makes the point that ‘God is not being compared to the animals themselves. It is rather the deeds of God that are described and compared to the deeds of specific animals in particular circumstances’ (p. 36).

32 Hebrew —a word covering all species of turtle dove. The people are symbolised by the turtle-dove, a bird persecuted by all predatory animals. See discussion in Feliks, Y., Nature and Man in the Bible, pp. 203–205Google Scholar.

33 See Schochet, pp. 51–6 for a discussion of the kinship between humans and animals, their sharing of a common destiny and shared responsibility before God whose providence extends beyond the human sphere alone to include the animal world.

34 I am grateful to Professor John Emerton for his helpful comments on this article.