Bible animals : $b being a description of every living creature mentioned in the Scripture, from the ape to the coral.Wood, J. G. (John George)
Religion
Bible animals : $b being a description of every living creature mentioned in the Scripture, from the ape to the coral.
Wood, J. G. (John George)
Animals in the Bible; Nature in the Bible
Having now examined the passages in which ivory is mentioned, we turn
to those in which the Elephant itself is named. These are only to be
found in the Apocrypha, and in all of them the Elephant is described
as an engine of war. If the reader will refer to the First Book of the
Maccabees, he will find that the Elephant is mentioned at the very
commencement of the book. "Now when the kingdom was established before
Antiochus, he thought to reign over Egypt, that he might have the
dominion of two realms.
"Wherefore he entered into Egypt with a great multitude, with
chariots, and elephants, and horsemen, and a great navy." (i. 16, 17.)
Here we see that the Elephant was considered as a most potent engine
of war, and, as we may perceive by the context, the King of Egypt was
so alarmed by the invading force, that he ran away, and allowed
Antiochus to take possession of the country.
After this, Antiochus Eupator marched against Jerusalem with a vast
army, which is thus described in detail:--"The number of his army was
one hundred thousand footmen, and twenty thousand horsemen, and two
and thirty elephants exercised in battle.
"And to the end that they might provoke the elephants to fight, they
showed them the blood of grapes and mulberries.
"Moreover, they divided the beasts among the armies, and for every
elephant they appointed a thousand men, armed with coats of mail, and
with helmets of brass on their heads; and, besides this, for every
beast were ordained five hundred horsemen of the best.
"These were ready at every occasion wheresoever the beast was; and
whithersoever the beast went they went also, neither departed they
from him.
"And upon the beasts were there strong towers of wood, which covered
every one of them, and were girt fast unto them with devices; there
were also upon every one two and thirty strong men that fought upon
them, beside the Indian that ruled him.
"As for the remnant of the horsemen, they set them on this side and
that side at the two fronts of the host, giving them signs what to do,
and being harnessed all over amidst the ranks." (1 Macc. vi. 30, &c.)
It is evident from this description that, in the opinion of the
writer, the Elephants formed the principal arms of the opposing force,
these animals being prominently mentioned, and the rest of the army
being reckoned as merely subsidiaries of the terrible beasts. The
thirty-two Elephants appear to have taken such a hold of the
narrator's mind, that he evidently looked upon them in the same light
that the ancient Jews regarded chariots of war, or as at the present
day savages regard artillery. According to his ideas, the thirty-two
Elephants constituted the real army, the hundred thousand infantry and
twenty thousand cavalry being only in attendance upon these animals.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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