Animals in God’s Sight
This article talks about:
- God's Care for Animals
- Animals as Instruments of God’s Will
- God's Covenant with Animals
-By Betsy Ramsay-
It may come as a surprise to some that animals are very precious in the sight of the Lord, even the wild “beasts of the field”. In a time when the people of Judah had strayed in large numbers from their holy faith in the Lord, there was a blight that came over their land. We read in the Book of Joel of the Lord’s “great army” that He sent among them because of their disobedience. The “great army” consisted of locusts, caterpillars, cankerworms, and a variety if scavenger insects that had laid waste to their good agricultural land (Joel 2:25).
In Joel 1:17-20, one reads, “the seed is rotten under their clods, the barns are broken down, … the corn is withered.”
And about the animals, “How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because they have no pasture. Yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.” And again, in Joel 1:20, we see the prophet Joel ‘s distress on behalf of the animals in his words to the Lord, “The beasts of the field cry also unto thee.”
It would seem as though the wild beasts might be asking, “Don’t our lives matter to our Maker as our hunger only gets worse? What could have happened to our usually fertile pastureland?”
We learn that the Lord had sent dearth to His people Judah as a punishment for their waywardness, but when the Lord calls for the people to “turn ye unto me with all your heart and with fasting and with weeping and mourning,” the religious leaders in their turn call for a solemn assembly for this very purpose. This coming together in true repentance does, in fact, take place, and circumstances subsequently improve for both the people and the animals.
The lives of the animals do matter to their Maker as we read in Joel 2:22, “Be not afraid, oh ye beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree bears her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength.” I myself find it both touching and beautiful that we can read here these words of the Lord’s special concern for the animals.
Another interesting mention of “the beasts” appears in the account of the Lord Yeshua who, immediately after being baptized by his cousin John, is driven by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to fast and pray there for forty days. He would, in this situation, need to stand firm against wily words of Satan, the enemy of our souls, who was there with the goal of making the Son of God fall into sin and temptation at the very moment when He was about to set out on His God-given, sin-free ministry. We read here that there were wild beasts in this place and, happily, also angels with the task of ministering unto Yeshua and protecting Him (Mark 1:12-13).
Turning far back in time now to the days of Noah and to the colossal task it would seem was set before him to round up all the animals then existing on earth and bring them as male and female couples into the ark, he must have been an exceptional hunter at the very least! But no! As we read the account in Gen. 7:14-16, the animals, seemingly sensing that danger was near, went in of their own free will and in an orderly fashion, two and two as the Lord had determined. Here, indeed, we see that the animals were, in fact, more sensitive to the times than the majority of mankind, and they took the only option available to them to save their lives.
When the flood finally subsided after forty days of survival in the ark by mankind plus by one male and one female representative of every living creature, the Lord God made a covenant with Noah never again to destroy all mankind by a flood covering the whole earth. What is so interesting is that this covenant is indicated as having been made also with the animals (Genesis 9:8-17).
“I set my bow in the cloud and this will be the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all generations.”
Three times in this passage, we read about this everlasting covenant between the Lord and every living creature, thus signifying its enormous importance. Clearly, in God’s sight, not only every human but also every animal is of great importance to Him!
Now, let’s move on to a later event recounted in the Book of Esther! At a banquet that she had arranged Esther, the queen had successfully presented her urgent request to King Ahasuerus, her spouse, to spare the lives of her people, the Jews. Esther was at the time queen over a great domain reaching from India to Ethiopia. At that point, her Jewish people had been condemned to violent death wherever they were to be found in the kingdom on a date only a few days hence.
Now, the King had agreed with Queen Esther to totally reverse this grim measure, and the problem at hand was how to make it known throughout his kingdom that the Jews should be spared. We are talking about getting this message out within a few days’ time to the magistrates and total population of a kingdom extending over 127 provinces. It is common knowledge today that in those days there was no electronic communication, much less travel by plane, train, or car. So how was the entire population to be informed on such short notice?
The answer is simple. They “sent letters by posts on horseback and riders on mules, camels, and young dromedaries”. Yes, in this remarkable manner, the invaluable animals were the vehicles available to get the message out quickly, and, in so doing, save the lives of the Jewish people throughout the whole kingdom!
The Word of God clearly indicates another way as well in which animals at times were used to carry out the Lord’s purposes; this time in the matter of performing His judgments against ungodliness. In Jeremiah 5:1-6, we read how His people in Jerusalem “have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock; They have refused to return [to the Lord]. For they know not the way of the Lord nor the judgment of their God…”
“Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities; everyone that goes out thence shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many and their backslidings are increased.” (Jeremiah 5:6)
Not once but several times, we see a similar message repeated. For example, the following words in Jeremiah 15:3-6 are pretty much a repeat of the passage quoted above. “…Thou hast forsaken me. Thou art gone backward, saith the Lord. Therefore, will I stretch out my hand against thee. … I will appoint the dogs to tear and the fowls of the heaven and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.”
Now, if we move on to the account of Daniel in the lion’s den, this story, as told in the Book of Daniel (6:1-27), places the whole issue of animals as instruments of God’s divine judgment in a new perspective. Out of pure jealousy toward the prophet Daniel for his high standing with King Darius, the lords of Babylon cunningly come up with a scheme to cause Daniel to fall from his high position of authority with the king. Knowing that Daniel prayed on his knees three times a day making requests of his God, they pressure the king to sign a decree that no man in the kingdom be permitted to make a request of anyone but the king himself during the upcoming month. Likewise, the new law states that whoever disobeys this decree will be thrown into a den of lions leading to certain death as the men who hate Daniel assume.
Then Daniel continues to make requests of his God three times a day as his enemies fully expect, and the king has no choice but to stand by his own decree and have Daniel thrown unto the lions.
As the story then unfolds, King Darius spends a sleepless night in distress on behalf of Daniel. And early the next morning, tremblingly, the king approaches the mouth of the lion’s den and cries “with a lamentable voice unto Daniel… O Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God whom you serve continually, able to deliver you from the lions?”
Daniel then responds by telling the king that God has sent His angel to shut the mouths of the lions, and they have not hurt him. And why haven’t they hurt him? Because Daniel was found to be innocent, and even before the king he had done no wrong.
So, what does this brief exchange of words tell us? It actually reveals that even animals can pass judgment as to who is innocent and who is guilty. They appear to have an inner sense of the spirit in a person that reveals it. And if this is so, it makes the den of lions in this story more like a court of justice than an abiding place for ferocious beasts!
So as this story comes to a close, the men who had contrived to eliminate Daniel from his high post are thrown into the lion’s den themselves along with their wives and children. For them there is no rescuing. “The lions had the mastery over them and broke all their bones in pieces…”
With this account, I will now round off my little study of animals in the Bible and what they can teach as revealed in words of Scripture. If we have learned anything from this study, we have certainly learned that animals are very important in the sight of God, and they even have been entrusted with divine tasks that the God of heaven and earth has committed to them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Betsy Ramsay, American-born journalist, author, and teacher resided with her family in Sweden before moving to Israel in 1987. Betsy has authored twelve books, four of which are collections of her own, original poetry, and two are historical novels for children. She also has three full-color picture books for smaller children, for adults a personal memoir as well as the story of her Aliyah to Israel, and finally a story based on her German, Jewish grandfather's account from the Holocaust both in English and in German.