It was the habit of Hebrew writers to leave a good deal to the imagination; in general, they only cared to throw as much light on hidden subjects as was needful to regulate conduct. They gave precepts rather than speculations. There remain obscure points in their conception of animals, but we know how they did not conceive them: they did not look upon them as “things”; they did not feel towards them as towards automata.
After the Deluge, there was established “the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” Evidently, you cannot make a covenant with “things.”
N. Consoni.
GENESIS VIII.
(Loggie di Raffaello.)
That the Jews supposed the intelligence of animals to be not extremely different from the intelligence of man is to be deduced from the story of Balaam, for it is said that God opened the mouth—not the mind—of the ass. The same story illustrates the ancient belief that animals see apparitions which are concealed from the eyes of man. The great interest to us, however, of the Scriptural narrative is its significance as a lesson in humanity. When the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, what did the ass say? She asks her master why he had smitten her three times? Balaam answers, with a frankness which, at least, does him credit, because he was enraged with the ass for turning aside and not minding him, and he adds (still enraged, and, strange to say, nowise surprised at the animal’s power of speech) that he only wishes he had a sword in his hand, as he would then kill her outright. How like this is to the voice of modern brutality! The ass, continuing the conversation, rejoins in words which it would be a shame to disfigure by putting them into the idiom of the twentieth century: “Am I not thine ass upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee?” Balaam, who has the merit, as I have noticed, of being candid, replies, “No, you never were.” Then, for the first time, the Prophet sees the angel standing in the path with a drawn sword in his hand—an awe-inspiring vision! And what are the angel’s first words to the terrified prophet who lies prostrate on his face? They are a reproof for his inhumanity. “Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times?” Then the angel tells how the poor beast he has used thus has saved her master from certain death, for had she not turned from him, he would have slain Balaam and saved her alive. “And Balaam said unto the angel of the Lord, I have sinned.”
Balaam was not a Jew; but the nationality of the personages in the Bible and the origin or authorship of its several parts are not questions which affect the present inquiry. The point of importance is, that the Jews believed these Scriptures to contain Divine truth.
With regard to animals having the gift of language, it appears from a remark made by Josephus that the Jews thought that all animals spoke before the Fall. In Christian folk-lore there is a superstition that animals can speak during the Christmas night: an obvious reference to their return to an unfallen state.
Solomon declares that the righteous man “regardeth the life of his beast”; a saying which is often misquoted, “merciful” being substituted for “righteous,” by which the proverb loses half its force. The Hebrew Scriptures contain two definite injunctions of humanity to animals. One is the command not to plough with the ox and the ass yoked together—in Palestine I have seen even the ass and the camel yoked together; their unequal steps cause inconvenience to both yoke-fellows and especially to the weakest. The other is the prohibition to muzzle the ox which treads out the corn: a simple humanitarian rule which it is truly surprising how any one, even after an early education in casuistry, could have interpreted as a metaphor. There are three other commands of great interest because they show how important it was thought to preserve even the mind of man from growing callous. One is the order not to kill a cow or she-goat or ewe and her young both on the same day. The second is the analogous order not to seethe the kid in its mother’s milk. The third refers to bird-nesting: if by chance you find a bird’s nest on a tree or on the ground and the mother bird is sitting on the eggs or on the fledglings, you are on no account to capture her when you take the eggs or the young birds (one would like bird-nesting to have been forbidden altogether, but I fear that the human boy in Syria had too much of the old Adam in him for any such law to have proved effectual!). Let the mother go, says the sacred writer, and if you must take something, take only the young ones. This command concludes in a very solemn way, for it ends with the promise (for what may seem a little act of unimportant sentiment) of the blessing promised to man for honouring his own father and mother—that it will be well with him and that his days will be long in the land.
In the law relative to the observance of the Seventh Day, not only is no point insisted on more strongly than the repose of the animals of labour, but in one of the oldest versions of the fourth commandment the repose of animals is spoken of as if it were the chief object of the Sabbath: “Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest” (Exodus xxiii. 12). Moreover, it is expressly stated of the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh year when no work was to be done, that all which the land produces of itself is to be left to the enjoyment of the beasts that are in the land. The dominant idea was to give animals a chance—to leave something for them—to afford them some shelter, as in the creation of bird-sanctuaries in the temples.
In promises of love and protection to man, to the Chosen People, animals are almost always included. “The heavens shall tremble: the sun and moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining” (Joel ii. 10). “Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God” (Joel ii. 22, 23).