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Home » Bible Encyclopedias » Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature » Letter S

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Sheep

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature

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Fig. 317—Syrian Sheep

The normal animal, from which all or the greater part of the western domestic races of sheep are assumed to be descended, is still found wild in the high mountain regions of Persia, and is readily distinguished from two other wild species bordering on the same region. What breeds the earliest shepherd tribes reared in and about Palestine can now be only inferred from negative characters; yet they are sufficient to show that they were the same, or nearly so, as the common horned variety of Egypt and continental Europe: in general white, and occasionally black, although there was on the upper Nile a speckled race; and so early as the time of Aristotle the Arabians possessed a rufous breed, another with a very long tail, and above all a broad-tailed sheep, which at present is commonly denominated the Syrian. Flocks of the ancient breed, derived from the Bedouins, are now extant in Syria, with little or no change in external characters, chiefly the broad-tailed and the common horned white, often with black and white about the face and feet, the tail somewhat thicker and longer than the European. The others are chiefly valued for the fat of their broad tails, which tastes not unlike marrow; for the flesh of neither race is remarkably delicate, nor are the fleeces of superior quality. Sheep in the various conditions of existence wherein they would occur among a pastoral and agricultural people, are noticed in numerous places of the Bible, and furnish many beautiful allegorical images, where purity, innocence, mildness, and submission are portrayed—the Savior himself being denominated 'the Lamb of God,' in twofold allusion to his patient meekness, and to his being the true paschal lamb, 'slain from the foundation of the world' (). Some commentators affirm that the Hebrew word kesitah, which occurs only in , and , and is in the Authorized Version rendered money, literally means sheep or lambs, and should be so translated. Others, with greater probability, suppose that it refers to a piece of coined money bearing the figure of a sheep; and it is certain that Phoenicia had sheep actually impressed on a silver coin.

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Fig. 318—Supposed Kesitah

 

 

 

 

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Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Sheep'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​kbe/​s/sheep.html.
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