Isaiah 11:6-9 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid… Isaiah would not have the wild beasts exterminated, but tamed. There our Western and modern imagination may fail to follow him, especially when he includes reptiles in the regeneration, and prophesies of adders and lizards as the playthings of children. But surely there is no genial man, who has watched the various forms of life that sport in the Southern sunshine, who will not sympathise with the prophet in his joyous vision. Upon a warm spring day in Palestine, to sit upon the grass, beside some old dyke or ruin with its face to the South, is indeed to obtain a rapturous view of the wealth of life with which the bountiful God has blessed and made merry man's dwelling place. How the lizards come and go among the grey stones and flash like jewels in the dust! And the timid snake rippling quickly past through the grass, and the leisurely tortoise, with its shiny back, and the chameleon, shivering into new colour as he passes from twig to stone, and stone to straw, — all the air the while alive with the music of the cricket and the bee! You feel that the ideal is not to destroy these pretty things as vermin. What a loss of colour the lizards alone would imply! But, as Isaiah declares, — whom we may imagine walking with his children up the steep vineyard paths, to watch the creatures come and go upon the dry dykes on either hand, — the ideal is to bring them into sympathy with ourselves, make pets of them and playthings for children, who indeed stretch out their hands in joy to the pretty toys. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. |
    |