Reference: BEASTS
American
This word, used in contradistinction to man, denotes all animals besides, Ps 36:6, sometimes it means quadrupeds, and not creeping things, Le 11:2-7; and sometimes domestic cattle, in distinction from wild creatures, Ge 1:25. They were all brought to Adam to be named. Few are mentioned in the Bible but such as lived in Palestine and the countries adjacent. Beasts suffer with man under the penalties of the fall, Ge 3:14; Ex 9:6; 3:15; Eze 38:20; Ho 4:3. Yet various merciful provision for them were made in the Jewish law, Ex 20:10; 23:11-12; Le 22:28; 25:7. Animals were classed in the law as clean or unclean, with a primary reference to animal sacrifices, Ge 7:2; Le 11 The word beasts is figuratively used to symbolize various kings and nations, Ps 74:14; Isa 27:1; Eze 29:3; Da 7; 7:8; Re 12:13. It also describes the character of violent and brutal men, Ps 22:12,16; 1Co 15:32; 2Pe 2:12. The Hebrew word commonly rendered beast signifies living creatures. In Ezekiel's vision, Eze 1, this is applied to human beings or their symbols. In the book of Revelation two distinct words are employed symbolically, both rendered "beast" in our version. One is applied to persecuting earthly powers, Re 11:7; 13:1, etc.; the other to superhuman beings or their symbols, Re 4:6, etc. this latter might be appropriately rendered, "living creature," as the corresponding Hebrew word is in Ezekiel.
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God made each kind of the earth's animals, along with every kind of livestock and crawling thing. And God saw how good it was.
The LORD God told the Shining One, "Because you have done this, you are more cursed than all the livestock, and more than all the earth's animals, You'll crawl on your belly and eat dust as long as you live.
You are to take with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of the unclean animals, a male and its mate;
God also told Moses, "Tell the Israelis, "The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.
The LORD did this thing the next day, and all the livestock of the Egyptians died. But not one of the livestock died that belonged to the Israelis.
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. You are not to do any work neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your livestock, nor any foreigner who lives among you
but you are to let it rest the seventh year, leaving it unplanted. The poor of your people may eat from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. You are to do the same with your vineyards and olive groves. You are to do your work for six days, but on the seventh day you are to refrain from work so that your ox and donkey may rest, and so the son of your maidservant and the alien may be refreshed.
"Tell the Israelis that these are the living creatures that you may eat among the animals of the earth: You may eat any animal that has divided hooves with cloven feet and that ruminates its cud, read more. except you are not to eat the following animals that have divided hooves or ruminate their cud: the camel (because it chews the cud but doesn't have divided hooves, it is to be unclean for you), the rock badger (because it chews its cud but its hooves aren't divided, it is to be unclean for you), the hare (because it chews its cud, but its hooves aren't divided, it is to be unclean for you), and the pig (because it has divided hooves and is therefore cloven-footed, but it doesn't ruminate its cud, it is to be unclean for you).
However, you are not to slaughter a bull or a ewe along with its offspring on the same day.
The cattle and the wild animals in your land everything it produces are for your food.
Many bulls have surrounded me; the vicious bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
For dogs have surrounded me; a gang of those who practice of evil has encircled me. They gouged my hands and my feet.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your justice is like the great depths of the sea. You deliver both people and animals, LORD.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan. You set it as food for desert creatures.
At that time, with his fierce, mighty, and powerful sword, the LORD will punish the gliding serpent Leviathan the coiling serpent Leviathan and he will kill the dragon that's in the sea.
Tell him that this is what the Lord GOD says: "Watch out! I'm coming to get you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt! You big monster! You lay in wait in the middle of your waterways and say, "My waterways belong to me! I made them for myself!"
I'm going to shake the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the wild beasts, all the creatures that crawl on the earth, and every single human being who lives on the surface of the earth. Mountains will collapse, as will their mountain passages, and every wall will fall to the ground.
Therefore the land will mourn, and all who live there will languish, along with the wild animals of the field and the birds of the air. Even the fish in the sea will disappear.
In front of the throne was something like a sea of glass as clear as crystal. In the center of the throne and on each side of the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.
When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will wage war against them, conquer them, and kill them.
When the dragon saw that it had been thrown down to the earth, it pursued the woman who had given birth to the boy.
I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns, seven heads, and ten royal crowns on its horns. On its heads were blasphemous names.
Watsons
BEASTS. When this word is used in opposition to man, as Ps 36:5, any brute creature is signified; when to creeping things, as Leviticus 11:2, 7; 29:30, four-looted animals, from the size of the hare and upward, are intended; and when to wild creatures, as Ge 1:25, cattle, or tame animals, are spoken of. In Isa 13:21, several wild animals are mentioned as dwelling among the ruins of Babylon: "Wild beasts of the desert," ????, those of the dry wilderness, as the root of the word implies, "shall dwell there. Their houses shall be full of doleful creatures," ????, marsh animals. "Owls shall dwell there," ostriches, "and satyrs," ??????, shaggy ones, "shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands," ????, oases of the desert, "shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons," ????, crocodiles, or amphibious animals, "shall be in their desolate places." St. Paul, 1Co 15:32, speaks of fighting with beasts, &c: by which he does not mean his having been exposed in the 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 associates. 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 Re 4; 5; 6, mention is made of four beasts, or rather, as the word ??? signifies, living creatures, as in Ezekiel 1; and so the word might have been less 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.
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God made each kind of the earth's animals, along with every kind of livestock and crawling thing. And God saw how good it was.
Your gracious love, LORD, reaches to the heavens; your truth extends to the skies.
But desert beasts will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there owls will dwell, and goat-demons will dance there.
If I have fought with wild animals in Ephesus from merely human motives, what do I get out of it? If the dead are not raised, "Let's eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."