Bear (Dob, άρκτος)

Narrator: Chris Genthree
 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
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Syrian Brown Bear – Ursus Arctos Syriacus1
The species which inhabited Palestine is the Syrian Bear (Syriacus Ursus). When young its color is a dark brown, but this color gets lighter with age, and when old it is nearly white. They are now comparatively scarce in Palestine, but may still be seen on the mountains of Lebanon, and occasionally farther south. When vegetables and fruits are to be had the bear feeds upon them, but in the winter it lives upon animals. David slew a lion and a bear that had seized a lamb of the flock (1 Sam. 17:34-3734And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: 35And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. 36Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. 37David said moreover, The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the Lord be with thee. (1 Samuel 17:34‑37)). The she-bear is regarded as peculiarly fierce and dangerous when robbed of her whelps (2 Sam. 17:88For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men, and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field: and thy father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people. (2 Samuel 17:8); Prov. 17:1212Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly. (Proverbs 17:12); compare 2 Kings 2:2424And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. (2 Kings 2:24)). Alas that God should have to compare His fierce judgments on Israel to such a creature, together with the lion and leopard (Hos. 13:7-87Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them: 8I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them. (Hosea 13:7‑8)). In the millennium the cow and the bear shall feed together (Isa. 11:77And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (Isaiah 11:7)).
In Daniel 7:55And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. (Daniel 7:5) the Medo-Persian kingdom was compared to a bear, with three ribs in its mouth; and to it was said, “Arise, devour much flesh.” In Revelation 13:2 The beast that represents the still future Roman empire is described as being like a leopard, with feet as the feet of a bear, showing its destructive character, for it is by the strength of its feet the bear destroys its prey by tearing it open.
 
1. שי2, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons