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
The words "whom I made with thee" have been variously translated. Some
Hebraists render them as, "whom I made near thee," _i.e._ near or in
the country in which Job lived. Others read the words, "like as thee,"
_i.e._ that the Behemoth was the fellow-creature of Job. Others again
understand them as signifying that the man and the animal were
contemporaneous, and the passage should be read, "whom I made at the
same time with thee." Whichever interpretation we adopt, it is evident
that a parallel of some kind is drawn between the man and the beast.
"He eateth grass like the ox." The word which is here rendered "grass"
is translated in Numb. xi. 5 as "leeks." It means, something that is
green, and is probably used to signify green herbage of any
description. Now it is perfectly true of the hippopotamus that it eats
grass like an ox, or like cattle, as the passage may be translated. In
order to supply its huge massive body with nourishment, it consumes
vast quantities of food, as indeed may be inferred from the structure
of its mouth and jaws. The mouth is enormously broad and
shovel-shaped, so as to take in a large quantity of food at once; and
the gape is so wide, that when the animal opens its jaws to their full
extent it seems to split its head into two nearly equal portions. This
great mobility of jaw is assisted by the peculiar form of the gape,
which takes a sudden turn upwards, and reaches almost to the eyes.
Just as the mouth is formed to contain a vast quantity of food, so
the jaws and teeth are made to procure it. From the front of the lower
jaw the incisor teeth project horizontally, no longer performing the
ordinary duties of teeth, but being modified into tusks, which are in
all probability used as levers for prising up the vegetables on which
the animal lives. But the most singular portion of the jaw is the mode
in which the canine teeth are modified so as to resemble the incisor
teeth of rodents, and to perform a similar office.
These teeth are very long, curved, and chisel-edged at their tips,
their shape being preserved by continual attrition, just as has been
mentioned of the hyrax. The material of the teeth is peculiarly hard,
so much so, indeed, that it is in great request for artificial teeth,
the "verniers" of philosophical instruments, and similar purposes.
Consequently, with these teeth the hippopotamus can cut through the
stems of thick and strong herbage as with shears, and the strength of
its jaws is so great that an angered hippopotamus has been known to
bite a man completely in two, and to crush a canoe to fragments with a
single movement of its enormous jaws.
Keeping this description in our minds, we shall see how true is the
statement in verse 19. This passage is not adequately rendered in the
Authorized Version: the word which is translated as "sword" also
signifies a scythe, and evidently having that meaning in the text. The
passage is best translated thus: "His Maker hath furnished him with
his scythe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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