My pleasure! I'm glad you enjoyed it, Victoria.
You're a William Blake fan...
Didn't he do a Lion and Lamb picture somewhere? Seems to ring a bell.
Posted on 01/07/2002 7:58:22 AM PST by Sabertooth
It's a slightly skewed reference to Isaiah 11:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
It's a reference to the Messianic Age, and is followed by a reference to the second great regathering of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.
Before lions and calves (it's not lions and lambs: it's wolves and lambs, and lions and calves) lying down together has prophetic significance, we need to see a second great regathering. We have seen the beginning of the first one, begun in 1948; but it's not finished yet (there are still more Jews in the US than there are in Israel), and there must be another Diaspora (probably the Time of Jacob's Trouble, or Tribulation, prophesied in Zechariah and in Revelation) before the second great regathering can begin.
Both the second great regathering and the reversion of carnivores to herbivorism are things that will happen when Messiah returns, according to Isaiah. (He speaks of this also at the end of chapter 65.)
In other words, this is not a sign of the apocalypse.
But it is fascinating.
Indeed.
Excerpt:
A lioness has struck up friendship with an Oryx calf, escorting and protecting it around a Kenyan wildlife reserve, in a spectacle which has puzzled wildlife experts.
The full grown lioness has been roaming Samburu game reserve in the company of a Beisa Oryx calf, which it would ordinarily have killed for a meal.
Tourists and game workers have watched in disbelief as the lioness and the frail brown baby oryx walk side by side and lie down to rest – with all the intimacy of a mother and calf – at the foot of Koitogor hills, near the Serena Samburu.
The lioness has been protecting the calf from other predators and at times walks watchfully behind it as it would with its own cubs.
Oooh, this is so wonderful! Thanks for posting this, Saber. I love it.
It is not unheard of for mother cats to adopt abandoned baby squirrels and raccoons. Maybe the lioness just lost her cub and needed to fill her still dominant maternal instincts.
My pleasure! I'm glad you enjoyed it, Victoria.
You're a William Blake fan...
Didn't he do a Lion and Lamb picture somewhere? Seems to ring a bell.
Now why doesn't it surprise me that you'd remember that line?
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."
(KJV) Isa 11:6
(from www.GodsPromises.org)
.
(If you want OFF - or ON - my "Hugh Hewitt PING list" - please let me know.)
Similarly, I've heard it said that dogs relate socially to humans so well because dogs consider their human owners strange-looking and smelling dogs. It is pack behavior.
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