The Use of Animal Imagery in the Psalms and Wisdom Literature of Ancient Israel

Abstract

TheOld Testament is rich in animal imagery. There has been a considerable amount of work done on the imagery connected with animal sacrifice and on the theological significance of this, but little work done on the wider use of animal imagery in the Old Testament. To attempt to document and review this for the whole Old Testament is beyond the scope of this article, but what I wish to do is to focus on a particularly neglected area—the use of animal imagery in the psalms and wisdom literature of ancient Israel. I have divided the material mentioning animals in the books of Psalms, Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes into seven categories, which I believe are helpful for defining the material but necessarily involve some overlap. The first three categories are concerned with animals as seen from a human viewpoint. They involve humans looking at the world and attempting to illuminate and prescribe human behaviour on the basis of what is observed of animal behaviour. The last three categories involve God and his relationship with the created world, with humanity and with animals. Again this is expressed from a human standpoint, but very often the limitations of the human quest for understanding is stressed. The middle and bridging category is the simple observation of animal behaviour which seems to me to go some way towards counterbalancing the others which are inevitably humanocentric and theocentric respectively.