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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Dog
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The watch of the house, and of the flock (-11; ). Sometimes domesticated, as the Syrophoenician woman's comparison and argument imply, "the household (kunaria, 'little' or 'pet') dogs eat of the crumbs (-27; -28) which fall from their master's table." More commonly ownerless, and banded in troops which divide cities into so many quarters; each half-starved, ravenous troop keeps to its own quarter, and drives off any intruder; feeding on blood, dead bodies, and offal; therefore regarded as "unclean" (; ; ; ; ; ; -36). Their dismal howlings at night are alluded to in ; -15; "they return at evening, they make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city"; perhaps in allusion to Saul's agents thirsting for David's blood coming to Michal's house at evening, and to the retribution on Saul in kind, when he who had made David a wanderer himself wandered about seeking vainly for help against the Philistines, and went at last by night to the witch of Endor. As unclean (), dog, dead dog, dog's head, are terms of scorn or else self-abasement (; ; ; ; ). A wanton, self-prostituting man is called a "dog" (). One Egyptian god had a dog form. "Beware of the (Greek) dogs," those impure persons of whom I told you often" (; -19); "the abominable" (; compare ; ); pagan in spirit (-16); dogs in filthiness, snarling, and ferocity against the Lord and His people (; ); backsliding into former carnality, as the dog "is turned to his own vomit again" (). The Jews regarded the Gentiles as "dogs," but by unbelief they ceased to be the true Israel and themselves became dogs (-11). "Deliver my darling from the power of the dog," i.e. my soul (literally, my unique one, unique in its preciousness) from the Jewish rabble; as "deliver My soul from the sword" is Messiah's cry for deliverance from the Roman soldiery and governor. The Assyrian hunting dog as vividly depicted on Assyrian sculptures resembled exactly our harrier or foxhound.