Story of the Bible Animals

SHEEP FOLLOWING THEIR SHEPHERD.

We must all remember how David, who had passed all his early years as a shepherd, speaks of God as the Shepherd of Israel, and the people as Sheep; never mentioning the Sheep as being driven, but always as being led. "Thou leddest Thy people like a flock, by the hands of Moses and Aaron" (Ps. lxxvii. 20); "The Lord is my Shepherd.... He leadeth me beside the still waters" (Ps. xxiii. 1, 2); "Lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies" (Ps. xxvii. 11); together with many other passages too numerous to be quoted.

Our Lord Himself makes a familiar use of the same image: "He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice."

Although the shepherds of our own country know their Sheep by sight, and say that there is as much difference in the faces of Sheep as of men, they have not, as a rule, attained the art of teaching their Sheep to recognise their names. This custom, however, is still retained, as may be seen from a well-known passage in Hartley's "Researches in Greece and the Levant:"—

"Having had my attention directed last night to the words in John x. 3, I asked my man if it were usual in Greece to give names to the sheep. He informed me that it was, and that the sheep obeyed the shepherd when he called them by their names. This morning I had an opportunity of verifying the truth of this remark. Passing by a flock of sheep, I asked the shepherd the same question which I had put to the servant, and he gave me the same answer. I then bade him call one of his sheep. He did so, and it instantly left its pasturage and its companions, and ran up to the hands of the shepherd, with signs of pleasure, and with a prompt obedience which I had never before observed in any other animal.

"It is also true that in this country, 'a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him.' The shepherd told me that many of his sheep were still wild, that they had not learned their names, but that by teaching them they would all learn them."

Generally, the shepherd was either the proprietor of the flock, or had at all events a share in it, of which latter arrangement we find a well-known example in the bargain which Jacob made with Laban, all the white Sheep belonging to his father-in-law, and all the dark and spotted Sheep being his wages as shepherd. Such a man was far more likely to take care of the Sheep than if he were merely a paid labourer; especially in a country where the life of a shepherd was a life of actual danger, and he might at any time be obliged to fight against armed robbers, or to oppose the wolf, the lion, or the bear. The combat of the shepherd David with the last-mentioned animals has already been noticed.

In allusion to the continual risks run by the Oriental shepherd, our Lord makes use of the following well-known words:—"The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, … whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep."

Owing to the continual moving of the Sheep, the shepherd had very hard work during the lambing time, and was obliged to carry in his arms the young lambs which were too feeble to accompany their parents, and to keep close to him those Sheep who were expected soon to become mothers. At that time of year the shepherd might constantly be seen at the head of his flock, carrying one or two lambs in his arms, accompanied by their mothers.

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 sheepfold, and Himself to the door. "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, 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."

ANCIENT SHEEP PEN.

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.

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.

Sometimes the Sheep are brought up by hand at home. "House-lamb," as we call it, is even now common, and the practice of house-feeding peculiar in the old Scriptural times.

We have an allusion to this custom in the well-known parable of the prophet Nathan: "The poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter" (2 Sam. xii. 3). A further, though less distinct, allusion is made to this practice in Isaiah vii. 21: "It shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep."

How the Sheep thus brought up by hand were fattened may be conjectured from the following passage in Mr. D. Urquhart's valuable work on the Lebanon:—

"In the month of June, they buy from the shepherds, when pasturage has become scarce and sheep are cheap, two or three sheep; these they feed by hand. After they have eaten up the old grass and the provender about the doors, they get vine leaves, and, after the silkworms have begun to spin, mulberry leaves. They purchase them on trial, and the test is appetite. If a sheep does not feed well, they return it after three days. To increase their appetite they wash them twice a day, morning and evening, a care they never bestow on their own bodies.

THE POOR MAN'S LAMB.

THE RICH MAN'S FEAST.

"If the sheep's appetite does not come up to their standard, they use a little gentle violence, folding for them forced leaf-balls and introducing them into their mouths. The mulberry has the property of making them fat and tender. At the end of four months the sheep they had bought at eighty piastres will sell for one hundred and forty, or will realize one hundred and fifty.

"The sheep is killed, skinned, and hung up. The fat is then removed; the flesh is cut from the bones, and hung up in the sun. Meanwhile, the fat has been put in a cauldron on the fire, and as soon as it has come to boil, the meat is laid on. The proportion of the fat to the lean is as four to ten, eight 'okes' fat and twenty lean. A little salt is added, it is simmered for an hour, and then placed in jars for the use of the family during the year.

"The large joints are separated and used first, as not fit for keeping long. The fat, with a portion of the lean, chopped fine, is what serves for cooking the 'bourgoul,' and is called Dehen. The sheep are of the fat-tailed variety, and the tails are the great delicacy."

This last sentence reminds us that there are two breeds of Sheep in Palestine. One much resembles the ordinary English Sheep, while the other is a very different animal. It is much taller on its legs, larger-boned, and long-nosed. Only the rams have horns, and they are not twisted spirally like those of our own Sheep, but come backwards, and then curl round so that the point comes under the ear. The great peculiarity of this Sheep is the tail, which is simply prodigious in point of size, and is an enormous mass of fat. Indeed, the long-legged and otherwise lean animal seems to concentrate all its fat in the tail, which, as has been well observed, appears to abstract both flesh and fat from the rest of the body. So great is this strange development, that the tail alone will sometimes weigh one-fifth as much as the entire animal. A similar breed of Sheep is found in Southern Africa and other parts of the world. In some places, the tail grows to such an enormous size that, in order to keep so valuable a part of the animal from injury, it is fastened to a small board, supported by a couple of wheels, so that the Sheep literally wheels its own tail in a cart.

Frequent reference to the fat of the tail is made in the Authorized Version of the Scriptures, though in terms which would not be understood did we not know that the Sheep which is mentioned in those passages is the long-tailed Sheep of Syria. See, for example, the history narrated in Exod. xxix. 22, where special details are given as to the ceremony by which Aaron and his sons were consecrated to the priesthood. "Thou shalt take of the ram the fat and the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them."

FLOCKS OF SHEEP BEING TAKEN INTO JERUSALEM.

Though this particular breed is not very distinctly mentioned in the Bible, the Talmudical writers have many allusions to it. In the Mischna these broad-tailed Sheep are not allowed to leave their folds on the Sabbath-day, because by wheeling their little tail-waggons behind them they would break the Sabbath. The writers describe the tail very graphically, comparing its shape to that of a saddle, and saying that it is fat, without bones, heavy and long, and looks as if the whole body were continued beyond the hind-legs, and thence hung down in place of a tail.

The Rabbinical writers treat rather fully of the Sheep, and give some very amusing advice respecting their management. If the ewes cannot be fattened in the ordinary manner, that end may be achieved by tying up the udder so that the milk cannot flow, and the elements which would have furnished milk are forced to produce fat. If the weather should be chilly at the shearing time, and there is danger of taking cold after the wool is removed, the shepherd should dip a sponge in oil and tie it on the forehead of the newly-shorn animal. Or, if he should not have a sponge by him, a woollen rag will do as well. The same potent remedy is also efficacious if the Sheep should be ill in lambing time.

That the Sheep is liable to the attack of the gadfly, which deposits its eggs in the nostrils of the unfortunate animal, was as well known in the ancient as in modern times. It is scarcely necessary to mention that the insect in question is the Æstrus ovis. Instinctively aware of the presence of this insidious and dreaded enemy, which, though so apparently insignificant, is as formidable a foe as any of the beasts of prey, the Sheep display the greatest terror at the sharp, menacing sound produced by the gadfly's wings as the insect sweeps through the air towards its destination. They congregate together, placing their heads almost in contact with each other, snort and paw the ground in their terror, and use all means in their power to prevent the fly from accomplishing its purpose.

When a gadfly succeeds in attaining its aim, it rapidly deposits an egg or two in the nostril, and then leaves them. The tiny eggs are soon hatched by the natural heat of the animal, and the young larvæ crawl up the nostril towards the frontal sinus. There they remain until they are full-grown, when they crawl through the nostrils, fall on the ground, burrow therein, and in the earth undergo their changes into the pupal and perfect stages.

It need hardly be said that an intelligent shepherd would devote himself to the task of killing every gadfly which he could find, and, as these insects are fond of basking on sunny rocks or tree-trunks, this is no very difficult matter.

The Rabbinical writers, however, being totally ignorant of practical entomology, do not seem to have recognised the insect until it had reached its full larval growth. They say that the rams manage to shake the grubs out of their nostrils by butting at one another in mimic warfare, and that the ewes, which are hornless, and are therefore incapable of relieving themselves by such means, ought to be supplied with plants which will make them sneeze, so that they may shake out the grubs by the convulsive jerkings of the head caused by inhaling the irritating substance.

The same writers also recommend that the rams should be furnished with strong leathern collars.

When the flock is on the march, the rams always go in the van, and, being instinctively afraid of their ancient enemy the wolf, they continually raise their heads and look about them. This line of conduct irritates the wolves, who attack the foremost rams and seize them by the throat. If, therefore, a piece of stout leather be fastened round the ram's neck, the wolf is baffled, and runs off in sullen despair.

Generally, the oldest ram is distinguished by a bell, and, when the flock moves over the hilly slopes, the Sheep walk in file after the leader, making narrow paths, which are very distinct from a distance, but are scarcely perceptible when the foot of the traveller is actually upon them. From this habit has arisen an ancient proverb, "As the sheep after the sheep, so the daughter after the mother," a saying which is another form of our own familiar proverb, "What is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh."

We now come to the Sheep considered with reference to its uses. First and foremost the Sheep was, and still is, one of the chief means of subsistence, being to the pastoral inhabitants of Palestine what the oxen are to the pastoral inhabitants of Southern Africa.

To ordinary persons the flesh of the Sheep was a seldom-tasted luxury; great men might eat it habitually, "faring sumptuously every day," and we find that, among the glories of Solomon's reign, the sacred chronicler has thought it worth while to mention that part of the daily provision for his household included one hundred Sheep. No particular pains seem to have been taken about the cooking of the animal, which seems generally to have been boiled. As, however, in such a climate the flesh could not be kept for the purpose of making it tender, as is the case in this part of the world, it was cooked as soon as the animal was killed, the fibres not having time to settle into the rigidity of death.

Generally, when ordinary people had the opportunity of tasting the flesh of the Sheep, it was on the occasion of some rejoicing,—such, for example, as a marriage feast, or the advent of a guest, for whom a lamb or a kid was slain and cooked on the spot, a young male lamb being almost invariably chosen as less injurious than the ewe to the future prospects of the flock. Roasting over a fire was sometimes adopted, as was baking in an oven sunk in the ground, a remarkable instance of which we shall see when we come to the Jewish sacrifices. Boiling, however, was the principal mode; so much so, indeed, that the Hebrew word which signifies boiling is used to signify any kind of cooking, even when the meat was roasted.

The process of cooking and eating the Sheep was as follows.

The animal having been killed according to the legal form, the skin was stripped off, and the body separated joint from joint, the right shoulder being first removed. This, it will be remembered, was the priest's portion; see Lev. vii. 32: "The right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest for an heave offering of the sacrifices of your peace offerings." The whole of the flesh was then separated from the bones, and chopped small, and even the bones themselves broken up, so that the marrow might not be lost.

A reference to this custom is found in Micah iii. 2, 3, "Who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people … and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron." The reader will now understand more fully the force of the prophecy, "He keepeth all His bones: not one of them is broken" (Psa. xxxiv. 20).

The mixed mass of bones and flesh was then put into the caldron, which was generally filled with water, but sometimes with milk, as is the custom with the Bedouins of the present day, whose manners are in many respects identical with those of the early Jews. It has been thought by some commentators that the injunction not to "seethe a kid in his mothers milk" (Deut. xiv. 21) referred to this custom. I believe, however, that the expression "in his mother's milk" does not signify that the flesh of the kid might not be boiled in its mother's milk, but that a kid might not be taken which was still in its mother's milk, i.e. unweaned.

Salt and spices were generally added to it; see Ezek. xxiv. 10: "Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well." The surface was carefully skimmed, and, when the meat was thoroughly cooked, it and the broth were served up separately. The latter was used as a sort of sauce, into which unleavened bread was dipped. So in Judges vi. 19 we read that when Gideon was visited by the angel, according to the hospitable custom of the land, he "made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of flour: the flesh he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak, and presented it to him."

Valuable, however, as was the Sheep for this purpose, there has always existed a great reluctance to kill the animal, the very sight of the flocks being an intense gratification to a pastoral Oriental. The principal part of the food supplied by the Sheep was, and is still, the milk; which afforded abundant food without thinning the number of the flock. As all know who have tasted it, the milk of the Sheep is peculiarly rich, and in the East is valued much more highly than that of cattle. The milk was seldom drunk in a fresh state, as is usually the case with ourselves, but was suffered to become sour, curdled, and semi-solid.