Cattle

Cattle, the bovine herd of the patriarchal and Israelite household, register in Scripture as wealth, hospitality, sacrifice, and figure of speech. The herd is at hand when Abraham entertains visitors, it bleats a verdict on Jacob's prosperity at Succoth, it is contested at wells in the Negeb, and it gives Bashan its byword in prophetic taunt. The umbrella gathers HERDS and HERDSMEN, with supplemental verses filling out the picture of sacrifice, shelter, stall-feeding, and the pasturelands of Gilead and Bashan.

The Herd at Hand

The herd serves the table of hospitality. When the three visitors come to Mamre, "Abraham ran to the herd, and fetched a tender and good calf, and gave it to the attendant; and he hurried to dress it" (Gen 18:7). The same animals are reckoned among the household assets the Israelites refuse to leave behind in Egypt: "with our flocks and with our herds we will go; for we must hold a feast to Yahweh" (Ex 10:9). And in the famine years, when silver runs out, the cattle themselves become the price of bread — "our silver is all spent; and the herds of cattle are my lord's" (Gen 47:18).

The herd doubles as a measure of standing. Saul, summoned to kingship, "came following the oxen out of the field" (1Sa 11:5), and Nathan's parable of the rich man weighs guilt by the very abundance of "his own flock and of his own herd" (2Sa 12:4) when set against a poor man's single lamb.

Sheltering and Stall-Feeding

Cattle are sheltered. "Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth" (Gen 33:17) — the name itself preserves the memory of the shelters thrown up for the herd. Stall-feeding also belongs to the domestic register. Proverbs sets the fattened ox in tension with the mood of the house: "Better is a dinner of herbs, where there is love, Than a stalled ox and hatred with it" (Pr 15:17).

Sacrifice

Cattle answer to the altar at the largest scale Israel ever records. Solomon, dedicating the temple, "offered for the sacrifice of peace-offerings, which he offered to Yahweh, two and twenty thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the sons of Israel dedicated the house of Yahweh" (1Ki 8:63). The herd is not only domestic provision but covenant offering.

The Pasturelands of Gilead and Bashan

Two regions east of the Jordan stand out as cattle country. Gilead draws the request of Reuben and Gad: "Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle: and when they saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that, look, the place was a place for cattle" (Num 32:1-4). They name the towns and ask for the inheritance because "the land which Yahweh struck before the congregation of Israel, is a land for cattle; and your slaves have cattle" (Num 32:4).

Bashan supplies the prophetic byword. Its bulls press around the sufferer in the Psalm: "Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round" (Ps 22:12). Its fatlings are slaughtered in the oracle against Gog: "You⁺ will eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan" (Eze 39:18). And Amos turns the herd into a figure of judgment on the women of Samaria — "Hear this word, you⁺ kine of Bashan, who are in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their lords, Bring, and let us drink" (Am 4:1). Bashan is the standing image of fattened, well-pastured cattle, and that image becomes a prophetic accusation.

The same eastern landscape closes the prophetic horizon. Restoration is spoken in pastoral terms: "Sharon will be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in, for my people who have sought me" (Isa 65:10).

Herdsmen

Herdsmen carry the herd's business into the social record. The first quarrel of the patriarchal narrative is theirs: "there was a strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt then in the land" (Gen 13:7). A generation later the strife is over water — "the herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, The water is ours. And he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him" (Gen 26:20). Herdsmen also show up in royal service, where rank is recorded: Doeg the Edomite is named "the chiefest of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul" (1Sa 21:7).