Sárospataki Füzetek 20. (2016)

2016 / 2. szám - ARTICLES / STUDIEN - Jaap Doedens: Lierary Wormholes: Wild Animals and Angels in Mark 1:13

Jaap Doedens

5:2 If you continue to do good, even the unclean spirits will flee from you and wild animals willfear you}7’

Interestingly, this belief is also present in the Book of Job where Eliphaz states that if one trusts God, the result will be that

At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the beasts of the earth.

For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you}6

Similarly, the Book of Kings describes what happened after the Northern Kingdom was deported by the Assyrians in 722, after the fall of Samaria, and foreign peoples were transported to the region of Samaria. As turns out, the countryside became so desolated, therefore the population of lions increased so much that these wild animals began to kill people. However, no such ecological conclusion is drawn, (the country has become desolated, which resulted in the increase of wild animals), but a religious explanation is put forward:

And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Awa, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria, and dwelt in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations which you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the landThen the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away thence; and let him go and dwell there, and teach them the law of the god of the land!’ So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they shouldfear the Lord}7

Here, also, the lack of “fear of the Lord” leads to having to fear the ferocity of wild animals. Attacks of lions are explained as a warning signal from “the god of the land,” who in this way expresses his dissatisfaction that people do not keep his rules. It is as if the inhabitants discover that they live in a country of which they are missing the “owner’s manual”.35 36 37 38 Common trait in all these passages is that a righteous life

35 T. Benj. 3:4-5; 5:2. (Translation: Kee: Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, OTP 1, 825-826). (Emphasis added).

36 Job 5:22-23. (Emphasis added. Bible passages are from the Revised Standard Version).

37 2 Kgs 17:24-28. (Emphasis added). See also the story of 1 Kgs 13, where "the man of God who came from Judah" is killed by a lion because of his disobedience to Yhwh (1 Kgs 13,20-25).

38 See also Lev 26:3-6:"If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them (...)! will give peace in the land (...) and I will remove evil beasts from the land."

60 Sárospataki Füzetek 20. évfolyam 2016-2