In the order of creation, the a. they appear on the fifth day, when the fish and birds are created from the sea and the land. The next day, the sixth, God made †œa. of the earth according to their kind† . That same day he created man (Gen 1: 20-27). The idea presented in Gn. 1 is that both men and a.ate on vegetables (Gen 1:29-30). In the messianic age “a child…will herd” wild beasts and “a lion will eat straw like an ox” (Isa 11:6-7). God takes care of the a. (Mat 6:26), an attitude that men should imitate (Deu 14:21; Deu 22:6-7). In his lordship, he also uses them at will, as in the case of a “great fish” that he prepared to swallow “Jonah” (Jon 1:17), or the “worm” that “smote the gourd” (Jon 4 :7), that is, from the largest of the a.to the smallest.
God made them, protects them and sometimes even uses them to send judgment to men, as is the case with plagues of locusts or devouring beasts (Lev 26:21-22). In religious terms the a. they were classified as clean and unclean, depending on whether or not they could be used in worship and diet. It is speculated that the origin of the prohibitions regarding sacrificing certain animals or eating them arose from the fact that many of them were worshiped by pagan peoples, on the one hand, and for health reasons on the other.
quantity of a. are mentioned in the Scriptures, but always in a casual way and never as an object of scientific observation. The writers of the Bible and their characters lived in contact with nature, so it is understood that they are presented in relation to the world a. In addition, details of the life of a. to draw conclusions of a spiritual nature from them, as is the case of the ant, for being industrious (Pro 6:6; Pro 30:25).
The fauna that exists today in Israel is not the same as in biblical times because many species have disappeared for various reasons, especially indiscriminate hunting with very powerful weapons in recent centuries, but archeology has produced abundant evidence of the truth of the text. Biblical in terms of the a.that it mentions. However, the names used in the different translations of the Bible vary because it is not always possible to identify with certainty which type of a. a certain text refers to. Translators make comparisons between texts and draw conclusions from contexts, then apply their knowledge of today’s fauna to use a term that gives the reader an idea. That is why various biblical versions may use a different word for the same a.
should be taken into account when reading the different articles about them.
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
Both the vss. cast. ancient and modern mention a wide variety of animal names. In the older ones, lack of precise knowledge of the Palestinian fauna was the main cause of inaccuracy, and it is not surprising that the translators used the names of European species with which they were familiar. The systematic study of animal life did not begin until the ss. XIX, and previously it was usual to assign names only to the best known animals or those that had some practical importance. For this reason, animals that resembled each other in their general appearance, or in the use that could be put to them, bore the same or similar names. These general principles apply to animal life as a whole. It is generally not very difficult to identify animals that are mentioned several times in various contexts that may offer some clue, but trad. of many names found only in the various lists of Lv. and Dt. will always be difficult. In vs. published after 1900 some of the earlier errors have been rectified, but there is inconsistency both within the same version and when comparing versions with each other, and most of them include some odd translations. Not all of these names, some of which are obsolete or unclear, are listed below, but most of them are included. It will be seen that there are two main sections: the wild animals that are usually part of the incidental context, and the domestic animals that were an integral part of everyday life. This last section is the most important and appears first.
Two Hebrew words it is translated ASS, ASS: ˒āṯônwhich refers to its resistance, and ḥamôr by the reddish color of the hair of the most common type of donkey. The former is used much more frequently than the latter, appearing chiefly in the two incidents of Balaam’s donkey (Num. 22) and Kish’s donkeys (1 Sam. 9–10). These words refer only to the tame donkey. The word BURRA, BURRO is generally applied to the domesticated type and is used in some modern versions, including °bj.
In addition there are two words that are generally translated. MONTÉS ASS: ˒ātôḏ Y pere’. The first is found both in the form arm. arād (Dn. 5.21), as in Heb. ˒ārôḏ (Job 39.5), but this trans. It is disputed by some scholars. pere’ appears nine times and its trad. as “wild ass” in Job 39:5-8 has good support in context. This species is known today by the name of ONAGRO (equus onager) (So °ci), which still exists in some regions of western and central Asia. A type closely related to the subspecies that became extinct around the middle of the ss. XIX has now been successfully introduced into the Hay Bar Nature Reserve in the S Negev.
The ASS is descended from the Nubian wild ass (Equus asinus) and is believed to have been domesticated in Neolithic times in NE Africa. The first biblical mention occurs during Abram’s residence in Egypt (Gen. 12.16), but it is probable that Abram already used donkeys as a means of transport from Mesopotamia, where by around 1800 BC there were already several clearly recognized types. It is now known from drawings and stone carvings that the “asses” that pulled wheeled chariots in ancient Mesopotamia more than 1,000 years earlier were onagers, but this species was never fully domesticated. Donkeys were vitally important to poor nomadic peoples, for whom they were the primary means of transportation, traveling an average of 30 km a day. A text of Mari indicates that already in the ss. In the 17th century BC it was considered improper for royals to travel on horseback rather than on donkey. The biblical picture is consistent in indicating that royals used donkeys on peaceful occasions, while horses were associated with war. In light of this cf. Zac. 9.9 and Mt. 21.2s.
DONKEY is used to refer to the young ass, although not exclusively.
The OT contains numerous references to the HORSE (their), many of them in a figurative sense, and this use becomes especially frequent in prophetic literature and in poetic books. In both the OT and NT the horse is invariably associated with war and power, and only one is rarely mentioned. The word pārāš, trans. “rider”, “horsemen”, could mean mounted horse belonging to the cavalry or perhaps the horse with its rider; their it is a more general word, which was used in particular for horses that pulled chariots.
Of all the animals that have become beasts of burden, the horse is the most important, even though it was domesticated long after the cattle and the donkey. In contrast to the wild ass, which lived in the semi-desert areas of North Africa, the ancestors of the horse were native to the grasslands of Europe and Asia. Domestication may have taken place in several places independently: in W Europe, SW Asia, and in Mongolia. The horses that are mentioned in the Bible presumably come from the second region mentioned.
A bab splint. from the Hamurapi period, ca. 1750 BC, contains the first reference to the horse, which is described as “the ass of the east”. There were already horses in Egypt when Joseph was in power, and they were used in the persecution narrated in Exodus. It is unlikely that the children of Israel had horses, and in any case they would not have been suitable for a journey through the desert.
The nations that inhabited Canaan had horses and used them in combat (Jos. 11.4, etc.). David fought against them frequently: “David hamstrung the horses of all the chariots, but he left enough for a hundred chariots” (2 Sam. 8.4), a reference that seems to be the first indication that he had horses of his own. (The hock is the joint between the knee and the fetlocks on the hind legs. Cutting this tendon leaves the animal permanently lame.) The sons of David ignored the prohibition of Dt. 17:16 (referring to the time when the people would demand king), “he will not increase for himself horses”; p. eg “Absalom made chariots and horses” (2 Sam. 15.1), while Solomon later had large numbers of horses, in special establishments at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. They were imported from Egypt and Kue (S Anatolia) and exported to neighboring countries. The price of a horse was 150 silver shekels (1 Kings 10.28ff.).
Although the word MULE, MULO has several other meanings, at the beginning, as well as today, it was applied mainly to the cross between the horse and the donkey or vice versa. These hybrid forms probably arose shortly after the horse was introduced to areas where donkeys were present, although such mixtures appear to have been specifically prohibited in Lv. 19.19: “You shall not make your cattle fast with animals of another species” (cattle, behēmâ, here means any domesticated animal). This could explain why it is only towards the end of David’s reign (2 Samuel 13:29) that the mule appears in the annals. It is generally accepted that Heb. yēmı̂m (Gn. 36.24) should trans. “springs” (°vrv2) and not ”mules (°vrv1). pereḏ Y pirdâ they are used for the male and the female, but the resulting hybrid is always sterile. Mules are valuable for the fact that they combine the strength of the horse with the stamina and sure footing of the donkey, as well as their ability to feed adequately on lesser quality forage; they also possess the additional vigor characteristic of hybrids, both animal and vegetable.
In Est. 8.14 the heb. reḵeš it is translated better as “fast horses” (°vrv2), and not “dromedaries and mules” (as in °vrv1).
While the early story of the CAMEL (Heb. gāmāl; gr. kamēlos) has significant gaps and its wild ancestor is unknown, there is much evidence of its domestication in ancient times. The one-humped camel, generally known as the Arabian, is often called a dromedary, though this name refers strictly to the swift variety; it is typical of the deserts of the Middle East, and appears in the biblical account. The one with two humps, or Bactrian camel (which receives this name from…