Bible animals

by J. G. Wood

A brief allusion to the hunting-net is made at page 27, but, as the passage in Isaiah li. requires a more detailed account of this mode of catching large animals, it will be as well to describe the sport as at present practised in the East.

When a king or some wealthy man determines to hunt game without taking much trouble himself, he gives orders to his men to prepare their nets, which vary in size or strength according to the particular animal for which they are intended. If, for example, only the wild boar and similar animals are to be hunted, the nets need not be of very great width; but for agile creatures, such as the antelope, they must be exceedingly wide, or the intended prey will leap over them. As the net is much used in India for the purpose of catching game, Captain Williamson's description of it will explain many of the passages of Scripture wherein it is mentioned.

The material of the net is hemp, twisted loosely into a kind of rope, and the mode in which it is formed is rather peculiar. The meshes are not knotted together, but only twisted round each other, much after the fashion of the South American hammocks, so as to obtain considerable elasticity, and to prevent a powerful animal from snapping the cord in its struggles. Some of these nets are thirteen feet or more in width, and even such a net as this has been overleaped by a herd of antelopes. Their length is variable, but, as they can be joined in any number when set end to end, the length is not so important as the width.

The mode of setting the nets is singularly ingenious. When a suitable spot has been selected, the first care of the hunters is to stretch a rope as tightly as possible along the ground. For this purpose stout wooden stakes or truncheons are sunk crosswise in the earth, and between these the rope is carefully strained. The favourite locality of the net is a ravine, through which the animals can be driven so as to run against the net in their efforts to escape, and across the ravine a whole row of these stakes is sunk. The net is now brought to the spot, and its lower edge fastened strongly to the ground rope.

The strength of this mode of fastening is astonishing, and, although the stakes are buried scarcely a foot below the surface, they cannot be torn up by any force which can be applied to them; and, however strong the rope may be, it would be broken before the stakes could be dragged out of the ground.

A smaller rope is now attached to the upper edge of the net, which is raised upon a series of slight poles. It is not stretched quite tightly, but droops between each pair of poles, so that a net which is some thirteen feet in width will only give nine or ten feet of clear height when the upper edge is supported on the poles. These latter are not fixed in the ground, but merely held in their places by the weight of the net resting upon them.

When the nets have been properly set, the beaters make a wide circuit through the country, gradually advancing towards the fatal spot, and driving before them all the wild animals that inhabit the neighbourhood. As soon as any large beast, such, for example, as an antelope, strikes against the net, the supporting pole falls, and the net collapses upon the unfortunate animal, whose struggles—especially if he be one of the horned animals—only entangle him more and more in the toils.

As soon as the hunters see a portion of the net fall, they run to the spot, kill the helpless creature that lies enveloped in the elastic meshes, drag away the body, and set up the net again in readiness for the next comer. Sometimes the line of nets will extend for half a mile or more, and give employment to a large staff of hunters, in killing the entangled animals, and raising afresh those portions of the net which had fallen.

Allusions to this mode of hunting are plentiful in the Old Testament. Take, for example, Job xviii. 7: "The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down; for he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare." And again in the next chapter, ver. 6, "Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with His net," in which is depicted forcibly the helpless state of one on whom the net has fallen, and who is lying on the ground vainly struggling in the meshes.

See also Ps. lvii. 6, "They have prepared a net for my steps, my soul is bowed down;" and Ps. lxvi. 11, "Thou broughtest us into the net, thou laidest affliction upon our loins." In the prophet Ezekiel are several passages which refer to the hunting net, and make especial mention of the manner in which it falls over its victim. One of these occurs in chap. xii. 13, "My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare." Again in chap. xix. 8, "Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him" In this passage a forcible allusion is made to the manner in which the wild animal is surrounded by the hunters, who surround and gradually close in upon them, as they drive their victims into the toils. The same combination of the hunters is also referred to by the prophet Micah, vii. 2, "There is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net."