Bible animals

by J. G. Wood

Importance of Sheep in the Bible—The Sheep the chief wealth of the pastoral tribes—Tenure of land—Value of good pasture-land—Arab shepherds of the present day—Difference between the shepherds of Palestine and England—Wanderings of the flocks in search of food—Value of the wells—How the Sheep are watered—Duties of the shepherd—The shepherd a kind of irregular soldier—His use of the sling—Sheep following their shepherd—Calling the Sheep by name—The shepherd usually a part owner of the flocks—Structure of the sheepfolds—The rock caverns of Palestine—David's adventure with Saul—Penning of the Sheep by night—Use of the dogs—Sheep sometimes brought up by hand—How Sheep are fattened in the Lebanon district—The two breeds of Sheep in Palestine—The broad-tailed Sheep, and its peculiarities—Reference to this peculiarity in the Bible—The Talmudical writers, and their directions to sheep-owners.

We now come to a subject which will necessarily occupy us for some little time.

There is, perhaps, no animal which occupies a larger space in the Scriptures than the Sheep. Whether in religious, civil, or domestic life, we find that the Sheep is bound up with the Jewish nation in a way that would seem almost incomprehensible, did we not recall the light which the New Testament throws upon the Old, and the many allusions to the coming Messiah under the figure of the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world.

In treating of the Sheep, it will be perhaps advisable to begin the account by taking the animal simply as one of those creatures which have been domesticated from time immemorial, dwelling slightly on those points on which the sheep-owners of the old days differed from those of our own time.

In the first place, the tenure of land was—and is still—entirely different from anything that can be found in our own country. With us, the comparatively large amount of population, placed on a comparatively small area of ground, prohibits the mode of sheep-keeping as practised in the East, where the pasture-lands are of vast extent, and common to all who choose to take their flocks to them. We have at present the Downs and the Highlands as examples of such pasturage, but they are of small extent when compared with the vast plains which are used for this purpose in the East.

The only claim to the land seems, in the old times of the Scriptures, to have lain in cultivation, or perhaps in the land immediately surrounding a well. But any one appears to have taken a piece of ground and cultivated it, or to have dug a well wherever he chose, and thereby to have acquired a sort of right to the soil. The same custom prevails at the present day among the cattle-breeding races of Southern Africa. The banks of rivers, on account of their superior fertility, were considered as the property of the chiefs who lived along their course, but the inland soil was free to all.

Had it not been for this freedom of the land, it would have been impossible for the great men to have nourished the enormous flocks and herds of which their wealth consisted; but, on account of the lack of ownership of the soil, a flock could be moved to one district after another as fast as it exhausted the herbage, the shepherds thus unconsciously imitating the habits of the gregarious animals, which are always on the move from one spot to another.

Pasturage being thus free to all, Sheep had a higher comparative value than is the case with ourselves, who have to pay in some way for their keep. There is a proverb in the Talmud which may be curtly translated, "Land sell, sheep buy."

The value of a good pasture-ground for the flocks is so great, that its possession is well worth a battle, the shepherds being saved from a most weary and harassing life, and being moreover fewer in number than is needed when the pasturage is scanty. Sir S. Baker, in his work on Abyssinia, makes some very interesting remarks upon the Arab herdsmen, who are placed in conditions very similar to those of the Israelitish shepherds in a bad pasture-land.

"The Arabs are creatures of necessity; their nomadic life is compulsory, as the existence of their flocks and herds depends upon the pasturage. Thus, with the change of seasons they must change their localities according to the presence of fodder for their cattle.... The Arab cannot halt in one spot longer than the pasturage will support his flocks. The object of his life being fodder, he must wander in search of the ever-changing supply. His wants must be few, as the constant change of encampment necessitates the transport of all his household goods; thus he reduces to a minimum his domestic furniture and utensils....