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Animals of the Bible
Dog
Hebrew kelev · Greek kyōn · about 40 mentions
Dogs were among the first animals people tamed, long before the Bible was written. In ancient Israel most dogs were half-wild scavengers that roamed the streets and rubbish heaps and ate whatever they found. Shepherds kept dogs to guard their flocks (Job 30:1), and Isaiah mocks careless leaders as watchdogs that cannot bark (Isaiah 56:10).
So “dog” was usually an insult. Goliath shouts “Am I a dog?”, and a person could call himself a “dead dog” to show how lowly he was (2 Samuel 9:8). Ecclesiastes says that even a live dog is better off than a dead lion. A dog as a companion appears only in the Book of Tobit, found in Orthodox and Catholic Bibles, where a dog follows young Tobias on his journey. When Jesus speaks with a non-Jewish woman, the Greek word is the diminutive kynaria, “little dogs”, and she answers that even dogs eat the crumbs under the table.
Key verses
So Gideon brought the people down to the water, and the LORD said to him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel to drink.”“Am I a dog,” he said to David, “that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.There is hope, however, for anyone who is among the living; for even a live dog is better than a dead lion.But Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”and longing to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Animals: Dog
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
