BEASTS

When this word is used in opposition to man, as Psalm xxxvi, 5, any brute creature is signified; when to creeping things, as Lev. xi, 2, 7; xxix, 30, four-footed animals, from the size of the hare and upward, are intended; and when to wild creatures, as Gen. i, 25, cattle, or tame animals, are spoken of. In Isaiah xiii, 21, several wild animals are mentioned as dwelling among the ruins of Babylon: “Wild beasts of the desert,” ציים , those of the dry wilderne , as the root of the word implies, “shall dwell there. Their houses shall be full of doleful creatures,” אהים , marsh animals . “Owls shall dwell there,” ostriches, “and satyrs,” שעירים , shaggy ones , “shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands,” איים , oases of the desert , “shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons,” תנים , crocodiles , or amphibious animals, “shall be in their desolate places.” St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv, 32, speaks of fighting with beasts, : by which he does not mean his having been exposed in the amphitheatre amphitheatre to fight as a gladiator, as some have conjectured, but that he had to contend at Ephesus with the fierce uproar of Demetrius and his a ociates. Ignatius uses the same figure in his Epistle to the Romans: “From Syria even unto Rome I fight with wild beasts, both by sea and land, both night and day, being bound to ten leopards;” that is, to a band of soldiers. So Lucian, in like manner, says, “For I am not to fight with ordinary wild beasts, but with men, insolent and hard to be convinced.” In Rev. iv, v, vi, mention is made of four beasts, or rather, as the word ζῶα signifies, living creatures , as in Ezek. i; and so the word might have been le harshly translated. Wild beasts are used in Scripture as emblems of tyrannical and persecuting powers. The most illustrious conquerors of antiquity also have not a more honourable emblem.