(READ: Deut. 23:1818Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God. (Deuteronomy 23:18); 1 SAM. 17:4343And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. (1 Samuel 17:43); 2 SAM. 9:88And he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am? (2 Samuel 9:8); PSA. 22:16-2016For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. 17I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. 18They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. 19But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me. 20Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. (Psalm 22:16‑20); ISA. 56:10-1110His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. 11Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. (Isaiah 56:10‑11); MAT. 15:26-28; REV. 22:1515For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. (Revelation 22:15).)
EU 23:18{SA 17:43{SA 9:8{SA 22:16-20{SA 56:10-11{AT 15:26-28{EV 22:15{
THE Bible has nothing at all good to say about the dog, absolutely nothing in its favor, for it is rather taken as suggestive of wickedness, wantonness or greed in the different passages in which it is mentioned. Perhaps no other animal is so entirely condemned—unless indeed it be the dog's near neighbor, the fox—and it appears to be utterly useless, except for performing the most loathsome work.
This seems very strange when we consider what friends we make of our dogs, they often appear almost human in their intelligence and in their devotion to their masters, so that they are very highly esteemed and are kept as pets more than any other animal.
But in Palestine it is very different; there the dog is an outcast, he prowls about the streets by night, devouring any refuse he can find, shrinking away at the approach of man, yet even so he serves a useful purpose, for he eats up a good deal of the filth that is thrown out into the street. He is an unkempt, untidy and unclean-looking beast that no one wants to see at very close quarters. This is the dog of the Bible, this is the animal we are thinking about, so we must banish from our minds thoughts of the well-favored and beautiful dogs that live in our homes, and think of the mean, scraggy and disreputable beast that prowls about the streets of the city, making night hideous by his disturbing noise. (Psa. 59:66They return at evening: they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city. (Psalm 59:6).)
This dirty and objectionable beast can, however, teach us some very useful lessons, and there are some points that I want you specially to try and remember: (1)The dog's outside place.
The dog's greed.
The dog's one chance.
(1)the Dog's Outside Place
We have already said that the dog is a very despised animal in the Holy Land; let us now see whether we can prove our words by reading from the Bible. You have already found some of the passages, but there are many others. Think of the proud Philistine giant Goliath, as he challenges the hosts of Israel, a splendid man as he stands there arrayed in full armor, and ready for battle! He is full of pride, trusting entirely in himself, and when the shepherd lad appears, great is his indignation, and he exclaims in fierce contempt, "Am I a dog?" little realizing that in the eyes of God he was no better than a dog, for was he not daring to defy the armies of the living God? We all know the story of how he perished like a dog soon afterward.
To such an extent was the dog despised and loathed, that even the price of a dog was not to be brought into the house of the Lord, and it was described as being an abomination to the Lord.
The dog is never found in Scripture associated with anything that is good, always with wickedness, so that we read in Matt. 7:66Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. (Matthew 7:6): "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs"—dirt and filth are his portion.
The Psalmist likens the company of the wicked to dogs, and says in his distress—and we find in his words a wonderful picture of the sufferings of our Lord and Savior—"dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have in closed me" and soon after he cries out alone in his deep distress, "Deliver... my darling from the power of the dog"—that is, preserve him from the wicked.
The dog is the last animal mentioned in the Bible, but it is still in the outside place, and in that wonderful city of God spoken of in the last chapter of Revelation we read "without are dogs," they can have no place in that which is holy, this city can have in it only those "that do his commandments," no wickedness can intrude. In the words of the hymn:
“There is a city bright,
Closed are its gates to sin,
Naught that defileth
Can ever enter in.”
How terrible to fall into the power of this nasty brute, it was one of the things most dreaded; it meant being left alone to die, and then to be devoured by these foul brutes. God never allowed His servants to fall into their clutches, but when men were disobedient, when they set themselves against God, He sometimes allowed their end to be a very wretched one.
The great king Ahab, who had thought he could oppose God, be unkind to His prophets and escape punishment, perished miserably in the end, and his blood was licked up by the dogs, as it flowed out of his war chariot. More terrible still was the fate of his wicked queen, for when men went to bury her they found nothing but her skull, her feet, and the palms of her hands, for the words of the Lord as spoken by his prophet Elisha had come true, "In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel." What an awful end!
Surely this terrible picture should increase our desire to avoid the company of the wicked, and prompt us to pray that we might be "delivered from the power of the dog," for if we are found in the company of the wicked, if our companions hinder us and keep us from good, then our end will be even as the dog in the outside place. "Without are dogs.”
(2)the Dog's Greed the Dog of the Bible Is Horrid, Not Only in What He Eats, Eating up As He Does the Filth of the Town, but He Is Also Horrid in the Way He Eats; He Is Greedy and Does Not Know When to Leave off Eating, and Goes on Until Actually Sick—What a Disgusting Picture! We Read of the Blind Watchman of Isaiah Being Likened to "Greedy Dogs Which Can Never Have Enough"—but This Is Not the End of This Horrid Picture, for We Read in More Than One Passage of the Dog Returning to Its Vomit. (Prov. 26:1111As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. (Proverbs 26:11)) How Loathsome, and How Revolting!
You may well ask me not to show you so disgusting a picture, you may say it is too filthy, that there is nothing to be learned by it. You already know how a greedy boy or girl is disliked everywhere, they are not wanted, they have few friends—you think there is no need to draw your attention to the greed of the dog, and to point to a moral in connection with it.
But we must go a stage further, and I will ask you to think of the dog as representing the wicked, and then see how the picture develops. Wicked boys and girls go on in their wicked way, they feed on nasty things, by which I mean they read nasty books, delight in vile pictures, evil thoughts and unclean actions. Then perhaps some one comes along and makes them realize the sinfulness of it all, and there comes a desire to make a fresh start, and they believe they will get rid of their past wickedness, they feel sick of it all, they know it has done them no good, so they determine to "turn over a new leaf," as it is called. Alas! how often their good resolutions fail and they get back to their bad ways again, so like the disgusting behavior of the dog to which we have alluded.
It is only when we acknowledge that we cannot do anything to make ourselves better, and that we shall only keep on stepping back into our bad ways, and that the best thing we can do is to appeal to some One who is stronger than ourselves—then, and not till then, will the characteristics of the dog disappear, and we shall become more like the "sheep of the pasture.”
(3)the Dog's One Chance in One Incident in the Bible We Read of the Dog As Being No Longer Outside, but Where Is He? Not in a Very Prominent Place Surely; He Is Under the Table, Hidden From View, and Dependent Entirely on the Grace of His Master for the Food That He Gets.
Surely we can learn much from this; most of you who read these pages will be Gentiles, and as such you have no claim on God. The only people who had any right to expect a blessing if they kept God's law were the Jews.
Now look at the picture of the Gentile woman who tried to get our Lord to do something for her daughter by appealing to Him as Son of David. As a Gentile she could not thus call Him, she could not expect anything, and so He had to tell her that His mission was to the house of Israel. But her sense of need was so great that again her voice is heard: "Lord, help me." What a splendid little prayer, a prayer of only three words, and yet what a lot there is in it! Our Lord could not be indifferent to it, but He still had a lesson to teach. He tells her it is not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs, by which He meant that a Gentile could not expect the blessings that God had promised the Jew. The poor woman is not angry at being likened to the horrid and despised dog, she accepts the position and practically says, "I am indeed a dog, I have no claim on your compassion"—but she says that even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table. By acknowledging her insignificance, and counting only upon His goodness and grace, she takes the lowly place and then gets the blessing and hears those wonderful words, "O woman, great is thy faith.”
In the Old Testament we read of a man who took the place of a dog, Mephibosheth, who is not content with calling himself a dog, but says he is a dead dog! What could be worse? He says thus that he is worthless, that he cannot expect anything but punishment from the great king, so that anything he receives will be due entirely to mercy and grace. We next see him treated as one of the royal princes, "for he did eat continually at the king's table.”
What can we learn from the man who called himself a dead dog, and the woman who took the place of a dog ready for the smallest fragments that fell to her lot?
I think if we realize that we are all sinners before God, quite unable to help ourselves, that we are in the outside place, but that God is full of love and grace, and that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," and if we pray that simple little prayer, "Lord, help me," and then confess, "I am indeed no better than a dog, I am always sinning, but I know that the Lord Jesus came to die for sinners, and so for me, and I will put my trust in Him," then indeed we shall be brought to know what it is to be sitting at the King's table, and enjoying all the good things to be found there.
So the dog's only chance lies in trusting to the grace of his master, and I think the writer of those lines,
"Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling,”
had the same thought in his mind, that all his trust was in his Redeemer, and that he could not do anything to help himself.