Every Man Shall Take a Lamb
Or a take a goat as it turns out
Sacrificing a Lamb
Exodus 12:1-6 King James Version (KJV)
1 And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying,
2 This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
3 Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:
4 And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:
6 And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
Recently we sold a young female goat to a buyer, for food. Our end of the bargain was to slaughter the goat, and skin, gut and hang the goat, in preparation for butchering. The kid was about 4 months old, and had yet to be naturally weaned by the dam. I’ll say this; never again. I needed Geri’s help to separate the kid from the dam, which was too hard on us both, and then I participated in the slaughtering, which was too hard on me. Perhaps I’m just getting soft, but in the future any goats we sell will have been weaned and achieved some independence from the dam. That goes for sheep, too.
Natural herd behavior does not always suit production techniques, if we wish to milk does and sell offspring. However, considering its principles can help us to maintain harmony within the herd and reduce stress. Behavior scientists recommend that dams and kids remain together for at least 6–7 weeks, which corresponds to the earliest time for weaning and kids’ growing independence from mother. However, there is still a strong bond at this time, and separation causes emotional distress.
If kept together, the dam will wean her kids herself when she feels they are ready. If kids are still suckling at 3–4 months, you may need to enforce weaning.
The above passage from Exodus refers to Passover, and the New International Version (NIV) translation of verse 5 is, “The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.” I’ll say a couple of things about the verse; 1) in general it’s a short life for any male of any species in the food supply, and 2) I’m not sure how waiting a year will work in the context of commercial sale, but I will find out.
Regardless, this experience got me to thinking hard about what it means to be a shepherd, which I have been looking forward to for some time, and to which I still look forward; as David wrote in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” which makes me, and all Christians, a part of His flock. It seems important.
Shepherding
Sheep were among the first wild animals to be domesticated, and they have been domesticated to such an extent that they are unable to provide for several aspects of their survival, not unlike the species homo sapiens.
Archaeologists studying the origins of farming have hundreds of sites to choose from across the Middle East, but few of them tell the full story. That requires a spot that spans the transition between a hunting and gathering lifestyle and a farming lifestyle, a period from about 10,500 to 9500 years ago. Researchers have long had their eyes on just such a site: Aşıklı Höyük…
Earlier work had suggested that Aşıklı Höyük might be a center of the earliest stages of animal domestication. The new study, led by zooarchaeologist Mary Stiner of the University of Arizona in Tucson, confirms this. The team looked at an archaeological layer radiocarbon dated to between 10,400 and 10,100 years ago. The botanical remains from this level show intensive cultivation of cereals, lentils, and nuts, meaning that crop farming was already under way; but the spectrum of animal bones in the earliest parts of this layer reflects the hunting of a wide variety of wild animals including hares, tortoises, and fish, along with larger animals such as goats, wild cattle, deer, and sheep. The most abundant large animal was sheep, although they represented less than half of the total animals.
Moreover, the sheep bones from these early levels were clearly those of wild animals, which can be distinguished from domesticated animals by their larger size and the distribution of ages and sexes…
Beginning about 10,200 years ago, however, the proportions of wild animals in this layer began to change, as the team reports online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The hunting of smaller animals appears to fall off to insignificant numbers, while the percentage of sheep—which outnumber goats by three to one—steadily increases. By about 9500 years ago, sheep represented nearly 90% of all animals at the site. Moreover, the researchers say that the age and sex pattern of the bones indicate active management, or herding, of the sheep: Only about 11% of the females died before the age of 6 to 7 months, whereas 58% of the males did, a typical pattern that reflects farmers' desire to preserve females for breeding.
And therein lies the role of the shepherd.
Our Shepherd
Psalm 23 KJV
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Even at first glance a few responsibilities of the shepherd apparent:
The text states clearly in verses 2 and 3 that the shepherd leads;
also from verse 2, the shepherd provides, i.e. he ensures that the sheep have access to good food, and good water;
from verse 4, the shepherd protects; and with help from a real shepherd interpreting Psalm 23 (more below) I will add
the shepherd as caregiver to the list.
There is also implied in the Bible, even if it is not explicit in Psalm 23, a sort of “chain of command” amongst shepherds, or chain of authority, as the Roman centurion noted when asking Jesus to heal his servant.
Matthew 8:5-9 (NIV)
5 And when he was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, 6 and saying, Lord, my servant lieth in the house sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. 7 And he saith unto him, I will come and heal him. 8 And the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, having under myself soldiers: and I say to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
God the Father was David’s shepherd, and Jesus’ is our shepherd.
John 10:11-18 New International Version (NIV)
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.
David of course shepherded his own flocks, of the both sheep and people; as do we, to a smaller or larger extent as the case may be, at home, in our workplaces, and so on.
Let’s just say there is a lot to Psalm 23 upon a close reading of the psalm, and the application of the wisdom contained therein runs both broad and deep in our lives.
And it strikes me that as a shepherd, sacrificing a lamb was never intended to be easy; it wasn’t easy for God the Father, nor Abraham, and it’s not easy for me.
Below I include some notes I made for my own edification.
Notes from A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 and The Shepherd’s Life
From verse 4, and for protection of the flock, the shepherd is armed with the rod, which also serves other purposes; the staff is for guiding the sheep and pulling them to safety if necessary. We also know from 1 Samuel 17 that David was armed with the sling, a longer range weapon, And the David had “slew” both a lion and a bear in his role as shepherd. Pretty badass you have to admit!
From a layman’s perspective that is about the sum and substance of what I took from Psalm 23, so then I consulted a person with specialized knowledge and experience in shepherding; specifically W. Phillip Keller in his book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.
The book is organized by verse of Psalm 23. and the author argues that the scripture is factual scientifically with respect to the behavior of sheep, and that Jesus’ role as shepherd of his flock of humans is perfectly analogous to shepherding sheep. I relied on Keller for further interpretation of verse 3 and of verse 5.
3 He Restores My Soul…
Keller makes a connection through Psalm 42:11 also written by David; “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God…”
There is such a thing as a “cast” sheep or a “cast down” sheep as it turns out. A sheep lying down to rest, may do so with is feet slightly uphill; it then rolls on its back, and if fat enough, or carrying enough wool, pregnant, or worst of all all three, it cannot get back up. Like I said, domesticated, and that was over 2,000 years ago. The shepherd then regularly counted his sheep, and if the 1 of 100 was not in evidence, he went looking. When found, he would set it on it’s feet again. He goes into some detail showing how some people get themselves into the same predicament, spiritually if not physically. I would some this up as a description of the shepherd as caregiver.
3 …he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
And sheep, left to their own devices, as also domesticated cattle, “will follow the same trails until they become ruts; graze the same hills until they turn to desert wastes; pollute their own ground until it is corrupt with disease and parasites.” In fact, much of regenerative agriculture involves mimicking predator pressure through regular movement of animals to fresh, nutritious, clean forage, free of parasites. This is precisely why we raise pigs in the woods, and chickens on pasture, moved daily. And this then, and in some places now, is also a role of the shepherd.
5 Thou preparest a table before me…
From Keller, “…keep in mind that the sheep are approaching the high mountain country of the summer ranges. These are known as alplands or tablelands so much sought after by sheepmen…the high plateaus of the sheep ranges are always referred to as mesas (in the western U.S. and southern Europe), the Spanish word for “tables.” The shepherd will conduct surveys before introducing the sheep, to prepare a grazing plan and to locate camps. To avoid poisonous plants, too, identify sources of pure water. And the shepherd carried supplies of salt and minerals to spread over the land. In other words, the shepherd prepared the table.
This is not new; I also read about such things in the book The Shepherd’s Life, by James Rebanks, which discusses a farming system going back centuries in the Lake District of North England, in this case to prepare for winter.
Lake District farms like ours tend to have a small amount of privately owned or managed inbye land, or pasture, in the valley bottoms, divided by dry-stone walls, hedges, fences, or thorn dykes… This is our land, owned by us, or rented, and where we have to grow any crops we need for winter and where we can best look after young lambs on the ewes in spring. These meadows are vital…and were created so that winter could be survived here. A huge amount of work was invested in making this place farmable, a lot undertaken in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries…Lack of fodder would have brought starvation for cattle and sheep, and ultimately people.
That’s a long time ago. And the work continues.
5…thou anointest my head with oil
…in the terminology of the sheepman, “summertime is fly time. By this, reference is made to the hordes of insects that emerge with the advent of warm weather. Only those people who have kept livestock or studied wildlife habits are aware of the serious problems for animals presented by insects in the summer.
A mixture of oil and other ingredients has been used historically, applied to the head, to protect the sheep, especially from the “nose fly.”
John, well thought out and explained, fully understand the difficulties of harvesting young animals. This was always hardest on the farm, regardless of the circumstances. That psalm is our favorite. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight.