Genesis 4:15: “And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.”
Exodus 11:7, “But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.”
“To protect Cain from being killed, a dog was given him, who accompanied him and protected him against all comers.” – Mishnah Genesis Rabba 22:12
There has been a sort of love/hate relationship between the Jews and dogs throughout the centuries. On the one hand we find dogs are often referred to in a negative light in the Bible. Yet, we find a passage like Exodus 11:7 where the dogs did not bark when the Jews left Egypt after the last plague. In some Jewish circles they will not even own a pet dog because of the negative light that Scripture places on dogs and yet there is a positive light in Scripture and in Jewish tradition. As a dog lover myself, Sparker to the exception, I would like to focus on the positive light that is presented on dogs.
The ancient Egyptian word for dog was iwiw, which is really a reference to the dog’s bark. From ancient drawings of the dogs in Egypt their dog of choice seemed to be the salukis or greyhounds. A greyhound is after all a hound dog that is used for tracking and the Egyptians would not only use them for hunting but as guard dogs and police dogs. They were used in military actions and as household pets.
Thus the iwiw, the very thing that the dog was prized for by the Egyptians that they gave it such a name to reference their bark, did not bark when they were supposed to in Exodus 11:7. They were to either alert the Egyptians that the Jews were leaving the land or to track down the first born of the Jews to slaughter them in revenge for the deaths in the final plague. We are not too sure the importance of their not barking but if they were anything like my neighbor’s pit bull, Sparky the Wonder Dog, not barking would be nothing less than a miracle. As a result the Midrash in Shmot Rabbah 31:9 teaches that dogs were to be rewarded for not barking by being fed the meat that was not kosher. You can be sure Sparky deserves no such reward. Many Jews will even feed their pet dog before they feed themselves as a symbol of this reward.
But in digging through Jewish tradition I find that the word used to express one’s affection for a friend, or a lover is kalavi. Kalavi means like my heart or one who is close to my heart. Yet this is also a play on words for the word in Hebrew for a dog which is Kalav. The word is spelled Kap, Lamed and Beth. When the Kap is used as a preposition is means like or as and the following word is lev which means a heart. Even the Hebrew word for a dog represents something with affection.
But I even found more of a positive spin in Jewish tradition regarding the dog. I was reading in the Midrash the other day and discovered that there is a teaching by the sage Rev that the mark of Cain was a dog. We have no idea what the mark of Cain was. The Hebrew word for mark is simply oth or Aleph Vav Taw. It begins with the first letter of the Hebrew Alphabet and ends with the last letter. It could mean a mark, it could also mean a sign or a token. The Jewish Midrash tends to look at the word as a token. God was showing mercy to Cain and as an act of mercy God gave Cain a dog. Of course we have no way of knowing for sure what this oth was but I like the idea of God showing his mercy to Cain by giving him a dog to be a companion, friend, and a protection. After all Cain would be an outcast and so God gave him a companion. Of course if that dog happened to be Sparky it would have probably been just another punishment.
I have a friend who had a dog that she raised from a puppy. She developed a real connection with her furry friend. He proved to be everything that Cain’s dog would have been if this were the oth God gave him. Her dog, that she named Autumn, was not only her constant companion, but her protector, her comfort in her grief and something much more. She told how when she would take Autumn for a walk and when she did she could hear the still small voice of God.
Why did God give us animals in this world in the first place? Some were meant to provide food for us, but many were not, many were meant for something else, to show us God’s beauty as in the galloping or running of a horse, his majesty in the lion, His tenderness in the mother’s car of her young, His joy in the singing and dancing of a bird or His reaching out to us in the presence of a little squirrel who runs up to you and twitches his nose looking for that daily peanut you give him.
The Bible makes it very clear that we are to treat animals humanely, we are not to make animals suffer and we are to treat them with respect. God gave us his creation as a reminder of who He is, what He is and that He is always near.
Autumn passed away not too long ago. My friend said that since his passing she found it very hard to hear the voice of God. I am confident she will find a new friend among God’s creation that will help her hear the voice of God once she has worked through her grief. I am confident because she has learned the purpose of God’s creation, our animals friends have been given to us by God as a gift as Cain’s oth was a gift to be a constant reminder of the presence of God and they can offer us the gift of helping us hear God’s still small voice.
I took a vacation day from work today to take advantage of my season pass to Brookfield Zoo. So what is the attraction of a zoo? Go figure. I think people go to the zoo to relax, find a sense of peace and somehow being around God’s creation does that for them. It is almost as if you can hear that still small voice of God as you God uses his creation to entertain us.
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