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Animals of the Bible
Sheep
Hebrew tson (flock), keves (lamb) · Greek probaton · several hundred mentions
Sheep were the wealth of the herdsmen of the Bible, from Abel to David. The common breed of the region was the fat-tailed sheep, whose broad tail stores fat — Leviticus speaks of “the entire fat tail” (3:9). Sheep gave milk, meat, wool for clothing and skins, and a ram’s horn became the trumpet called the shofar. Shearing time was a festival with a feast (1 Samuel 25).
A shepherd led his flock from the front instead of driving it, and the sheep knew his voice — a scene still seen in the Middle East. At night several flocks could share one stone-walled fold; in the morning each shepherd called his own sheep out (John 10:3–4). Losing one sheep out of a hundred was a real loss to a family. Lambs were offered in the temple every morning and evening (Exodus 29:38–39), and every household ate a lamb at Passover (Exodus 12).
Key verses
Later she gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of the soil.And Samuel asked him, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied, “but he is tending the sheep.” “Send for him,” Samuel replied. “For we will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, comes home, and calls together his friends and neighbors to tell them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep!’The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen for his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.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: Sheep
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.
