These are some of the talks Beorn gave to his friends Hathach and Melzar during their many rest stops at desert wells. (Please bear in mind, this is Beorn talking with an old Babylonian mathematician and young astrologer, not with two Bible Scholars.)
IT’S IN THERE
“A righteous man regards the life of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” (Prov. 12:10) Beorn quoted from the sacred writings.
Melzar was surprised. He thought the sacred writings were only about Creator God and humans.
Beorn admitted he had been surprised too. “It was actually a result of looking carefully at the sacred writings and seeing how important animals were to Creator God that made Beorn change the way he looked at animals,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Hathach and Melzar had to hear. Beorn looked over at the camels, who were busy gulping down their water at the well, and decided he had about 15 minutes.
1 BIRDS and FISH were CREATED FIRST
Beorn explained from the beginning, if they wanted to listen, when Creator God made the heavens and the earth; he made the birds and fish a full day before humans. He wanted to make sure they were perfect before bringing man on the scene. Man thinks he’s important and animals are just an afterthought, but they were much more than that. If you think about it; it’s the human who has graying hair; you never see a graying bird.
2 NOAH’S ARK
(At one watering hole during journey across the desert):
And when man got so wicked in his everyday life, Creator God wanted to destroy the whole earth with a flood, But He wanted to save the animals.
It is recorded in the sacred writings that He had a person named Noah build this huge thing called an ark. Other than whales, fish, things that swam in the water, Creator God gathered two of every sort of animal and had them get in that ark, before sending rain nonstop for 40 days and 40 nights to flood the earth and destroy mankind. The sacred writings say that Noah and his family of 8 were the only humans who believed in Creator God to get in the ark with the animals. They didn’t steer, just floated with them.
I know it sounds unreal that they would’ve stayed afloat that long, but that’s what it says. It was a huge, three-story craft with one window at the top.
“Well,” Hathach interrupted here. “What were the dimensions of the ark?”
Beorn hurriedly checked the sacred writings. “It says…length: 300 cubits, width: 50 cubits, height: 30 cubits.”
Hathach, our mathematician-scientist, wrinkled his brow, then smiled. “Those measurements make that ark practically impossible to tip over, Beorn. It wouldn’t have taken seasoned shipmen to keep that ark afloat; rather, some real work to sink it.”
“And I’m thinking Beorn,” Hathach continued; “I don’t think there’s any problem thinking about how that ark stayed afloat that long. You’ve got a much bigger problem, I think, in figuring out how all the animals on board were fed all that time.”
Melzar piped up here. “But Hathach, I thought about that one already. I got the answer from my pet turtles at home.”
“Turtles?”
“They hibernate.”
“So do bears.”
“So do most animals.” Melzar said, smiling. “That’s just it. Often, in natural catastrophes such as famine or drought, Creator God simply sends wisdom to animals to conserve body energy and hibernate. If it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, it would be the natural thing for animals in the ark to go into deep sleep. Most wouldn’t even need to eat.”
“That would explain it,” Hathach said to a beaming Melzar. “But Beorn, you said the ark had a window. If they just floated & didn’t do any steering, why did they need a window?”
Here, Beorn told about when it stopped raining, how Creator God had showed them, through the raven and dove flying out that window, when it would be safe to leave the ark:
On the first try, the raven came back, showing there was absolutely no place to land. Noah sent out a dove too (ravens are hardy birds; their finding footholds doesn’t mean it’s safe for other animals). But the dove came back to the ark; so they waited a week and sent it out again.
This time, it came back with an olive leaf between its beaks. They waited another week, and…
This time, the dove didn’t come back.
Noah, his wife, and his three sons and their wives, and all the animals left the ark and inhabited the freshly-washed world Creator God had prepared. It had been 40 days and 40 nights of rain, and 12 months of waiting for the flood waters to recede for the soles of their feet to feel solid land under them once more.
The first thing they did was stop and say Thank You to Creator God for protecting them.
And do you know what Creator God did? He set a bow in the sky called a rainbow. Whenever you see those shining colors in the sky after rain, remember our Loving Creator God is saying,
“I think you’re important. I care about you and am watching over you. And I will never again send a worldwide flood to destroy the earth.”
Beorn looked around and realized the camels had finished drinking but had made no noise, had been sitting quietly at their side so they too could hear the end of the story!
“I think we’d better get moving,” he said smiling, “and go as far as we can before the end of the day.” And the three men mounted their camels.
3 JONAH & THE BIG FISH
One thing Beorn noticed when Creator God mentioned animals in the sacred writings was the contrast with how they responded to Him, compared to humans. Yesterday, I mentioned a large vessel called the ark and animals who rode inside it and were saved from a flood. Well, today, I’ll talk about another ship and a large animal—a fish this time.
Beorn read about a man called Jonah. One day, Creator God told him to go to a city called Nineveh. Jonah didn’t want to go there—they were very wicked people--and got on a ship to go in the opposite direction. Then he went to sleep.
Creator God got a strong wind blowing in the sea. The men on the ship were used to tempests, but this was no usual storm, and they started throwing everything overboard to lighten the boat, were afraid for their lives. The captain noticed Jonah was asleep down in the hold.
“Hey, what are you doing? Don’t you know we might all die?!” Jonah was told about the storm. He told the men it was because he was running away from Creator God.
“Throw me into the ocean, and the tempest will stop,” he said. They thought he was crazy. At first, they tried to row back to land and let him off, but they couldn’t. Finally, they threw Jonah into the water, which got calm right away.
Creator God saw Jonah go down into the water. But when he hit bottom, his hair got tangled in the seaweed, and it looked like he would drown.
Creator God told a huge fish to get Jonah in one mouthful. It wasn’t to eat him; that fish had a special chamber inside so that Jonah could breathe! Do you think the fish said he didn’t wanna and swam in the opposite direction? No; he did as he was told; he freed Jonah from that seaweed, and released the seawater from his body so that Jonah could breathe again.
Then it says in the sacred writings, for three whole days, that fish listened to Creator God Who told it to keep swimming with Jonah still inside its stomach! Uck! But that fish obeyed. It was during this time Jonah and Creator God had a heart-to-heart talk. Jonah knew God had given him new life and told Him he’d do anything He wanted him to do.
“It’s okay now,” Creator God told the fish; and he threw up Jonah onto the dry land. Altho’ Jonah had gotten on a ship headed in a direction opposite of Nineveh, that fish, for three days, swam all the way back this way and up rivers the ship never would’ve been able to travel. God pointed him in the right direction, and Jonah walked to Nineveh.
The people of Nineveh listened to what Jonah said about Creator God, and repented of their wicked ways. God forgave everything they had ever done. God forgave Jonah for his disobedience, too.
Beorn realized, after reading this story, that the one who obeyed perfectly, the one he wanted to give a medal to, was not Jonah, not the people of Nineveh, but the one that didn’t get any attention: the fish!
END
