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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So God made wild animals according to their kind and the cattle according to their kind, and every creeping thing of the earth according to its kind. And God saw that [it was] good.
Then Yahweh God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you [will be] cursed more than any domesticated animal and more than any wild animal. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
From all the clean animals you must take for yourself {seven pairs}, a male and its mate. And from the animals that [are] not clean [you must take] two, a male and its mate,
And God said again to Moses, "So you must say to the {Israelites}, 'Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This [is] my name forever, and this [is] my remembrance from generation [to] generation.'
And Yahweh did this thing the next day; all the livestock of Egypt died, but from the livestock of the {Israelites} not one died.
But the seventh day [is] a Sabbath for Yahweh your God; you will not do any work--you or your son or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your animal, or your alien who [is] in your gates--
But the seventh you will let it rest and leave it fallow, and the poor of your people will eat, and their remainder the animals of the field will eat. You will do likewise for your vineyard and for your olive trees. " 'Six days you will do your work, but on the seventh day you will stop so that your ox and your donkey will rest and the son of your slave woman and the alien will be refreshed.
"Speak to the {Israelites}, saying, 'These [are] the animals that you may eat from all the animals that [are] on the land: Any among the animals that has a divided hoof and has a split cleft in [the] hoof, such you may eat. read more. However, these you may not eat from those that chew the cud and from those that have a divided hoof: the camel, because it [is] a chewer of cud but it does not have a hoof that is divided--it [is] unclean for you; and the coney, because it [is] a chewer of cud but it does not have a hoof that is divided--it [is] unclean for you; and the hare, because it [is] a chewer of cud but it does not have a hoof that is divided--it [is] unclean for you; and the pig, because it has a divided hoof and has a split cleft in the hoof but it does not chew cud--it [is] unclean for you.
And you shall not slaughter an ox or a sheep and {its young} on {the same day}.
and all its yield shall be for your domestic animal and for the wild animal, which [are] in your land to eat.
Many bulls have encircled me; mighty [bulls] of Bashan have surrounded me.
Because dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has encircled me. Like the lion [they are at] my hands and my feet.
Your righteousness [is] {like the mighty mountains}, your judgments [like the] great deep. You save man and beast, O Yahweh.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him [as] food to [the] desert dwelling creatures.
On that day, Yahweh will punish with his cruel, great and strong sword Leviathan, [the] fleeing serpent, and Leviathan, [the] twisting serpent, and he will kill the sea monster that [is] in the sea.
Speak, and you must say, 'thus says the Lord Yahweh: "Look! I am against you, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great sea monster, the [one] lying down in the midst of his Nile streams, who says to me, "[It is] my Nile, and I made [it] [for] myself."
And the fish of the sea and the birds of the heaven and the animals of the field and all of the creeping things that creep on the earth and all of the humans who [are] on the surface of the earth will shake {at my presence}; and the mountains will be demolished, and the steep mountain sides will fall, and every wall on the earth will fall.
Therefore the land mourns, and all [those] living in it languish with the animals of the field, and the birds of the heaven, and even the fish of the sea are being swept away.
And before the throne [was something] like a sea of glass, like crystal, and in the midst of the throne and around the throne [were] four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back.
And when they have completed their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will make war with them and will conquer them and will kill them.
And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male [child].
And I saw coming up out of the sea a beast that had ten horns and seven heads, and on its horns ten royal headbands, and on its heads a blasphemous name.
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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So God made wild animals according to their kind and the cattle according to their kind, and every creeping thing of the earth according to its kind. And God saw that [it was] good.
O Yahweh, your loyal love [extends] into [the] heavens, your faithfulness unto [the] clouds.
But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full [of] howling creatures, and the daughters of ostriches will live there, and goats will dance there.
If according to a human perspective I fought wild beasts at Ephesus, what benefit [is it] to me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.