Bible animals

by J. G. Wood

In allusion to this fact Isaiah writes: "His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arms and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead them that are with young" (or, "that give suck," according to the marginal reading). Here we have presented at once before us the good shepherd who is no hireling, but owns the Sheep; and who therefore has "his reward with him, and his work before him;" who bears the tender lambs in his arms, or lays them in the folds of his mantle, and so carries them in his bosom, and leads by his side their yet feeble mothers.

Frequent mention is made of the folds in which the Sheep are penned; and as these folds differed—and still differ—materially from those of our own land, we shall miss the force of several passages of Scripture if we do not understand their form, and the materials of which they were built. Our folds consist merely of hurdles, moveable at pleasure, and so low that a man can easily jump over them, and so fragile that he can easily pull them down. Moreover, the Sheep are frequently enclosed within the fold while they are at pasture.

If any one should entertain such an idea of the Oriental fold, he would not see the force of the well-known passage in which our Lord compares the Church to a sheep fold, and Himself to the door. "He that entereth not by the door into the sheep fold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice.... All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."

Had the fold here mentioned been a simple enclosure of hurdles, such an image could not have been used. It is evident that the fold to which allusion was made, and which was probably in sight at the time when Jesus was disputing with the Pharisees, was a structure of some pretensions; that it had walls which a thief could only enter by climbing over them—not by "breaking through" them, as in the case of a mud-walled private house; and that it had a gate, which was guarded by a watchman.

In fact, the fold was a solid and enduring building, made of stone. Thus in Numbers xxxii. it is related that the tribes of Reuben and Gad, who had great quantities of Sheep and other cattle, asked for the eastward side of Jordan as a pasture-ground, promising to go and fight for the people, but previously to build fortified cities for their families, and folds for their cattle, the folds being evidently, like the cities, buildings of an enduring nature.

If the reader will refer to the upper left-hand corner of the large illustration, he will see in the distance the fold into which the sheep are gathered at nightfall, and will perceive that it is a strong stone building, with walls of a considerable height. In some places the folds are simply rock caverns, partly natural and partly artificial, often enlarged by a stone wall built outside it. It was the absence of these rock caverns on the east side of Jordan that compelled the Reubenites and Gadites to build folds for themselves, whereas on the opposite side places of refuge were comparatively abundant.

See, for example, the well-known history related in 1 Sam. xxiii. xxiv. David and his miscellaneous band of warriors, some six hundred in number, were driven out of the cities by the fear of Saul, and were obliged to pass their time in the wilderness, living in the "strong holds" (xxiii. 14, 19), which we find immediately afterwards to be rock caves (ver. 25). These caves were of large extent, being able to shelter these six hundred warriors, and, on one memorable occasion, to conceal them so completely as they stood along the sides, that Saul, who had just come out of the open air, was not able to discern them in the dim light, and David even managed to approach him unseen, and cut off a portion of his outer robe.

That this particular cave was a sheepfold we learn from xxiv. 2-4: "Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats. And he came to the sheepcotes by the way." Into these strongholds the Sheep are driven towards nightfall, and, as the flocks converge towards their resting-place, the bleatings of the sheep are almost deafening.

The shepherds as well as their flocks found shelter in these caves, making them their resting-places while they were living the strange, wild, pastoral life among the hills; and at the present day many of the smaller caves and "holes of the rock" exhibit the vestiges of human habitation in the shape of straw, hay, and other dried herbage, which has been used for beds, just as we now find the rude couches of the coast-guard men in the cliff caves of our shores.

The dogs which are attached to the sheepfolds were, as they are now, the faithful servants of man, although, as has already been related, they are not made the companions of man as is the case with ourselves. Lean, gaunt, hungry, and treated with but scant kindness, they are yet faithful guardians against the attack of enemies. They do not, as do our sheepdogs, assist in driving the flocks, because the Sheep are not driven, but led, but they are invaluable as nocturnal sentries. Crouching together outside the fold, in little knots of six or seven together, they detect the approach of wild animals, and at the first sign of the wolf or the jackal they bark out a defiance, and scare away the invaders. It is strange that the old superstitious idea of their uncleanness should have held its ground through so many tens of centuries; but, down to the present day, the shepherd of Palestine, though making use of the dog as a guardian of his flock, treats the animal with utter contempt, not to say cruelty, beating and kicking the faithful creature on the least provocation, and scarcely giving it sufficient food to keep it alive.