Called gamal (Heb.) orkamelon (Gk.), this rather ugly-looking creature is mentioned about sixty times in the Bible, in both literal and metaphorical contexts. They were considered ritually unclean for "though it chews the cud, [it] does not have a split hoof" (Lev 11:4). The camel was a common domesticated animal in the cultures of the ancient Near East, though its mention esp. in the book of Genesis had once proved controversial to skeptics who though it anachronistic. More recent studies in the domestication history of the animal, though still far from being beyond doubt, has found no reason for such skepticism nonetheless.
The camel was a common domesticated animal in the ancient Near East
Biologists nowadays recognize two species of camels: the single-humped Camelus dromedarius of west Asia (also popularly called 'dromedary') and the double-humped C. bactrianus from the steppes of central Asia. Belonging to the family known as even-toed ungulates, the genetic barrier between the two species is rather porous, and they interbreed easily.
The animal's ability to survive long periods of nutrimental privation and to lose as much as a third of their body weight when starved of water made it an extremely useful animals traversing long and arid routes from one oasis to the next. Once they are given a chance for refreshment, however, they can take in as much as ## of water in a single continuous draft. That Abraham's servant would pray and ask Yahweh to let it be "that when I say to a girl,`Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,' and she says,`Drink, and I'll water your camels too —let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac" (Gen 24:14) shows his sensibility regarding what would make his young master a good wife; with ten camels to water any woman who would offer to do such a thing had got to be either very foolish or very gracious and generous (that a full 70% of the occurrences of the word in Genesis is used in this chapter alone, shows how important the animal was to the plot-line of the narrative here).
As in all other pastoral cultures, the size of one's flock—whether of sheep, goats, cattle or camels and of the household of men to tend to them—was a measure of the owner's wealth. Thus Job was said to owned "seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants" (Job 1:3). The oppressiveness of the Midianites was described in terms of their "livestock and tents [which were] like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels" (Judg 6:6).
Though forbidden as food to the Israelites, many parts of the camel, nonetheless, found mundane uses among them. The hair of the animals are weaved into a fabric, a choice material among Bedouins for their tents, but also for John the Baptist's clothes (Matt 3:4; Mk 1:6).
Metaphorically, probably the most famous use in the OT is to be found at Jer 2:23, where the prophet likens Israel's insatiable thirst for idolatry to a she-camel, presumably on heat, "running here and there." Jesus's use of the camel as a metaphor is captured in his famous warning to the wealthy that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matt 19:14; Mk 10:25, Lk 18:25) and in his castigation of the teachers of the law for their hypocracy; they were, he said, "blind guides [who] strain out a gnat but swallow a camel" (Matt 23:22)
©ALBERITH
190419lch