I Just returned from a wonderful vacation in California. Visiting my son, who lives next door to Yosemite National Park, we drove to the High Country on Sabbath to see the 'Spring' that resides now in this High elevation. Not only did we see the new spring wild flowers but were excited to watch two fawn fleeing from our intrusion into their territory. Here is where we find Deer in our Bibles......
Psalms 42:1 "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after the, Oh God."
At least three species of deer frequented Palestine in the days when forests still covered the mountains. One was the red deer, similar to that found in Europe. The second, the fallow deer, also lives in Europe. Smaller in size, it ranges in color from white to dark brown, but is usually tan, spotted with white in summer. It has Palmate antlers.
The roebuck is a third Eurasian deer that was also common in the Bible lands. We cannot, however, be sure that any scriptural passage spicifically refers to it, even though the KJV employs the name. The roebuck is a small secretive deer that comes out only at night. The bucks have short, upright spikes or forked anttlers. Bones of reindeer and European elk [like our moose] have turned up in caves in Lebanon. It is unlikely that the Israelites would have classified them as deer.
The KJV Calls the stag, buck, or male deer, by the archaic "hart." The doe, or female deer, goes by the name of "hind." The writer of 1Kings 4:23 refers to "harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer" being served at the king's table. The passage contains two mistranslations. The Hebrew 'tsebi' should have been "bubal" instead of "fallowdeer." For additional information, see under those headings.
The meat of deer, classed as clean, appeared on Solomon's table. Isaac asked Esau to bring him savory venison is deer meat, but in this case scholars tend to think that the patriarch had in mind the flesh of the wild goat, the ibex.
In most of the deer family, only males have antlers, caribou and reindeer being exceptions, On most horned animals the horn is hollow sheath that frows around a bony core, and the outer shell sheds annually.
On deer the antlers, as they are called rather than horns, are solid. When the deer shed their antlers in late winter or early spring, they come off right at the skull. During the summer the bucks grow new antlers that will be ready for use in the fall. Usuallu they will grow a little larger than the year before, with additional points. Even the enormous racks of ;the caribou and the six-foot spread of the Alaska moose develop in one short season and then drop off again.
When Jacob blessed his 12 sons [Genesis 49:21], he said that Naphtali "is a hind let loose," suggesting that he was nimble as a deer. In Isaiah 35:6 we read, "Then shall the lame man leap as an hart," indicating how the infirmities and sicknesses of the present life will vanished in the earth made new. When forests still covered the Holy Land, the woods cantained many deer. As David hid from Saul in the wilderness he must have seen the thirsty stags come down to the streams to drink in the evenings. The scene struck him as a fit and poetic simile to describe his great longing for water of life that comes from God alone.
I pray we will thirst for Christ and His righteousness.
In His Love,
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charlene
[This message has been edited by Richard Myers (edited 09-17-2000).]
