50 Fun Facts About Animals in the Bible

Which animal spoke aloud to the prophet Balaam after he struck it three times on the road to Moab?

A donkey saved Balaam's life: she had swerved three times from an angel with a drawn sword that the prophet could not see.

Daniel was thrown into a den of which animals after praying to God in defiance of King Darius's decree?

Lions left Daniel unharmed all night, and in the morning he told the king that God had sent an angel to shut their mouths.

Which prophet spent three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish after fleeing toward Tarshish?

Jonah had been told to preach in Nineveh but boarded a ship going the other way, and the sailors threw him overboard to calm a storm.

Which bird returned to Noah's ark carrying a freshly plucked olive leaf, showing the flood waters had gone down?

A dove brought the leaf back at evening, and when Noah released her again seven days later she never returned.

Jesus said it is easier for which animal to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter heaven?

A camel squeezing through a needle so astonished the disciples that they asked who could possibly be saved; Jesus answered that with God all things are possible.

In the second plague of Egypt, which animals swarmed out of the Nile into beds, ovens and kneading bowls?

Frogs covered Egypt until Pharaoh begged Moses to pray them away; they died in such numbers that they were piled in heaps and the land stank.

Which birds brought bread and meat every morning and evening to the prophet Elijah at the brook Cherith?

Ravens fed Elijah while he hid during a long drought; when the brook dried up, he moved on to a widow's house in Zarephath.

On a mountain in Moriah, Abraham sacrificed which animal, caught by its horns in a thicket, instead of Isaac?

A ram appeared just as an angel called out to stop Abraham's hand, and he named the place for it: the Lord will provide.

In Genesis, which creature persuades Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden?

A serpent, described as craftier than any other wild animal, was cursed for it to crawl on its belly and eat dust.

In a parable of Jesus, a man leaves ninety-nine of which animals in the wilderness to search for one lost?

Sheep, a hundred in all: the owner carries the stray home on his shoulders and calls his friends and neighbors to celebrate.

Jesus sent demons calling themselves Legion into a herd of which animals, which then rushed into the sea?

Pigs, about two thousand of them, drowned; the herdsmen ran to tell the town, and the locals begged Jesus to leave their region.

Besides wild honey, which insects did John the Baptist eat while preaching in the wilderness of Judea?

Locusts were lawful fare: Leviticus names them among the few insects the Israelites were allowed to eat.

While Moses was on Mount Sinai, Aaron melted gold earrings to make an idol shaped like which animal?

A calf of gold so angered Moses that he burned it, ground it to powder, scattered it on water and made the Israelites drink it.

According to Genesis, who gave names to all the livestock, the birds and every wild animal?

Adam named every creature God brought to him, but none proved a suitable partner, so God made the first woman.

On which day of creation in Genesis did God make the land animals, the same day as the first humans?

The sixth day came after the sea creatures and birds, which were made a day earlier; God then rested on the seventh.

Noah's ark, carrying pairs of every kind of animal, came to rest on the mountains of which region?

Ararat is where the ark grounded in the seventh month, but the surrounding mountaintops stayed hidden under water until the tenth.

In the dream Joseph explained to Pharaoh, seven fat and seven thin of which animals came out of the Nile?

Cows stood for years: the seven thin ones ate the seven fat ones, which Joseph read as seven years of plenty followed by seven of famine.

In the wilderness, which birds covered the Israelite camp at evening, giving the people meat with their morning manna?

Quail arrived again in the Book of Numbers, blown in from the sea by a wind, and the people spent two days and a night gathering them.

The prophet Jeremiah asks whether which animal can change its spots, a line that became an English proverb?

The leopard appears beside an Ethiopian who cannot change his skin; Jeremiah's point was that people long used to doing evil cannot simply start doing good.

The King James Bible names which mythical animal nine times, where most modern translations say wild ox instead?

The unicorn got there from the Hebrew word re'em, by way of older Greek and Latin translations that had turned it into a one-horned beast.

Which animals came out of the woods and mauled forty-two youths who had mocked the prophet Elisha's bald head?

Bears, two females, appeared after Elisha cursed the jeering crowd on the road to Bethel; he then walked on to Mount Carmel.

Which animals did Samson tie tail to tail in pairs, with burning torches, to set Philistine grain fields alight?

Foxes, three hundred of them, carried the fire through the standing grain and on into the olive groves in Samson's revenge for losing his wife.

In Jesus's parable of the rich man, which animals came and licked the sores of the beggar Lazarus?

Dogs came to the beggar as he lay at the rich man's gate; after death he was carried by angels to Abraham's side while the rich man suffered in Hades.

Jesus said not one of which small birds, sold two for a penny, falls to the ground unnoticed by God?

Sparrows made his point about worth: Jesus told his followers not to be afraid, because even the hairs of their heads were all numbered.

The Book of Proverbs tells the sluggard to study which insect, which stores its food at harvest without any ruler?

The ant returns later in Proverbs, listed among four creatures that are little on the earth yet exceedingly wise.

According to Isaiah, those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength and rise up on wings like which birds?

Eagles carry the promise further: the same verse says such people will run without growing weary and walk without fainting.

Psalm 42 compares a soul longing for God to which animal panting for streams of water?

A deer opens the psalm, credited to the sons of Korah, whose writer says tears have been his food day and night.

On the Day of Atonement in Leviticus, which animal was sent away into the wilderness carrying the people's sins?

A goat picked by casting lots was led away, and William Tyndale's 1530 English translation gave the language the word scapegoat for it.

Jesus told a disciple to pay the temple tax with a coin he would find in the mouth of which creature?

A fish, the first one hooked, would hold a silver stater, worth exactly enough to cover the tax for two people: Jesus and the disciple sent to catch it.

Which apostle saw a vision of a great sheet full of animals and heard a voice say to kill and eat?

Peter protested that he had never eaten anything unclean; the vision came three times and prepared him to visit the centurion Cornelius.

The prophet Nathan rebuked King David with a story of a rich man stealing a poor man's only what?

A lamb raised like a daughter was the poor man's whole wealth; David demanded the thief repay it fourfold before Nathan told him he was the man.

Lamenting over Jerusalem, Jesus said he had longed to gather its children as which bird shelters her young?

A hen gathering chicks under her wings was his picture of protection, offered to a city he said killed its prophets.

Which creature did God send to chew through the leafy vine shading a sulking prophet outside Nineveh?

A worm withered the plant at dawn, and God used the prophet's anger over it to ask why he should not pity a city of more than 120,000 people and many animals.

Which king's trading ships returned every three years carrying gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks?

Solomon ran the fleet alongside the ships of Hiram, king of Tyre, and the Bible says his riches exceeded those of every other king on earth.

Which king of Babylon was driven from his palace and ate grass like an ox, as Daniel had warned?

Nebuchadnezzar had just boasted of the great Babylon he built; he lived among the wild animals until he admitted that heaven rules, then got his throne back.

Which creature fastened onto the apostle Paul's hand as he fed a fire after being shipwrecked on Malta?

A viper hanging from his hand convinced the islanders he was a murderer; when he shook it into the flames unharmed, they decided he was a god.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns against storing up earthly treasures that rust and which insects destroy?

Moths and rust stand for decay; Jesus urged his listeners to store treasure in heaven instead, where no thief can break in and steal it.

The name of Deborah, the judge who held court under a palm tree, is a Hebrew word for which insect?

Bee is what the Hebrew word means; the Deborah of Judges was a prophetess who sent Barak into battle against Sisera's nine hundred iron chariots.

Absalom was riding which animal when his head caught in the branches of a great oak during a battle?

A mule carried him under the tree and simply walked on, leaving Absalom hanging in mid-air until Joab and his armor-bearers killed him.

In the Book of Job, God asks whether Job can pull in which fire-breathing sea creature with a fish hook?

Leviathan fills a whole chapter of Job, with smoke pouring from his nostrils, and Psalm 74 gives the monster more than one head.

In Revelation, the fourth horseman, named Death, rides a horse of which color?

Pale translates a Greek word that can also mean greenish-yellow, and some scholars think it suggests the sickly pallor of a corpse.

Leviticus allows the Israelites to eat only those water creatures that have which two features?

Fins and scales are the test, which is why lobster, crab, shrimp, squid and oysters are all off a kosher menu.

Leviticus ends its list of unclean birds, after the stork, heron and hoopoe, with which flying creature?

The bat is the only mammal on the list, which otherwise names birds such as vultures, owls, the osprey and the cormorant.

In the Book of Job, which bird leaves her eggs on the ground, forgetting that a foot may crush them?

The ostrich, Job is told, was deprived of wisdom by God, yet when she runs she laughs at the horse and its rider.

In Exodus, God promises to send which insects ahead of Israel to drive out the Canaanites and Hittites?

Hornets were to clear the land little by little rather than in a single year, so that it would not lie empty and be overrun by wild animals.

King Rehoboam told his people his father had punished them with whips, but he would use which creatures?

Scorpions were the threat that split the kingdom: the northern tribes rejected Rehoboam and made Jeroboam their king instead.

In Revelation 12, which seven-headed red creature waits to devour a woman's child the moment it is born?

A dragon with ten horns and seven crowns goes on to lose the war in heaven, thrown down to earth by Michael and his angels.

Leviticus lists which small animal as unclean, saying it chews the cud but lacks a parted hoof?

The hare does not ruminate at all, but it does re-eat soft pellets of part-digested plants, which may explain the old description.

In Jacob's deathbed blessing of his twelve sons, which son is described as a ravenous wolf?

Benjamin, the youngest, is pictured devouring prey in the morning and dividing plunder at evening; his tribe later produced Israel's first king, Saul.

Which brother of Cain kept flocks and offered God the fat portions of his firstborn animals?

Abel had his offering accepted while his brother's crops were not, and Cain's anger over it led to the first murder in the Bible.