Pack Animals

Pack animals appear in scripture as the means by which provisions are moved over distance. The clearest single picture is the supply train that fed the tribes gathered to make David king at Hebron.

Supplying the army at Hebron

When the tribes from far north and east traveled to Hebron, they did not arrive empty-handed; the surrounding districts loaded provisions onto a mixed train of beasts: "Moreover those who were near to them, [even] as far as Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, brought bread on donkeys, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen, victuals of meal, cakes of figs, and clusters of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep in abundance: for there was joy in Israel" (1 Chronicles 12:40). Four kinds of pack animal carry the load — donkeys, camels, mules, and oxen — and the cargo is named in detail: bread, meal, fig-cakes, raisin-clusters, wine, and oil. The same verse distinguishes the working animals carrying the supplies from the additional oxen and sheep brought as food.