The Root of Jesse, Day 7

The cow and the bear shall graze,
together their young shall lie down;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.

Isaiah 11:7

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Universal Harmony

For Isaiah’s audience, the image of a cow and a bear feeding together signified a new harmony transcending purity laws. While the cow belonged to the class of clean animals with cloven hooves that chew the cud (Leviticus 11:3), the wild and carnivorous bear was avoided as unclean. Beyond the animal kingdom, Jews and Gentiles (“clean” and “unclean” nations) will also be united. Thus, Jesus shepherded “unclean” lepers, tax collectors, sinners, and Gentiles into his fold. 

Church Fathers and Doctors

Early patristic and medieval reflections on the connection between the Levitical food laws and Isaiah’s prophecy illuminate the text:

St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 — c. 215 AD) writes: 

For the Jew is designated by the ox, from the animal under the yoke being reckoned clean, according to the law; for the ox both parts the hoof and chews the cud. And the Gentile is designated by the bear, which is an unclean and wild beast. And this animal brings forth a shapeless lump of flesh, which it shapes into the likeness of a beast solely by its tongue. For he who is convened from among the Gentiles is formed from a beastlike life to gentleness by the word; and, when once tamed, is made clean, just as the ox.

Stromata VI

Those without the law and divine revelation are “beastlike,” but the word of God tames and instructs them. In a Pauline metaphor (Romans 11:17-19), branches from a wild olive tree (Gentiles) are grafted into a cultivated one (Jews). 

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) writes:

…the calf, who eats grass and is a clean animal, the bear, who tears meat and is not a clean animal, shall feed together, on the same food of the Word of God; their young ones, that is, their families, together, that is, in conformity, shall rest to eat…

Commentary on Isaiah, Chapter 11, Lecture 2, n. 371

The Table of the Eucharist

Referencing 1 Corinthians 10:3, “they ate the same spiritual food,” St. Thomas reflects that the harmony of the cow and the bear may also refer to the table of the Eucharist.

Christ and Noah’s Ark

Allegorically, St. Thomas also likens the universal Christ to Noah’s ark, which carried every kind of clean and unclean animal.

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.

Colossians 3:11

“This is signified in Noah’s ark,” St. Thomas writes, “where there were all animals of each kind.”

Then the Lord said to Noah: Go into the ark, you and all your household, for you alone in this generation have I found to be righteous before me. Of every clean animal, take with you seven pairs, a male and its mate; and of the unclean animals, one pair, a male and its mate; likewise, of every bird of the air, seven pairs, a male and a female, to keep their progeny alive over all the earth.

Genesis 7:1-3

Noah’s ark is a figure of Christ, the ark of salvation, who assumed in his divine person “all flesh” (Genesis 6:19; John 1:14). 

Return to Vegetarianism 

Isaiah 11:7 ends with the lion, a carnivorous animal, eating hay like the ox, an herbivorous animal—God’s ideal for paradise in the beginning:

God also said: See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on all the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the wild animals, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the earth, I give all the green plants for food.

Genesis 1:29-30

The cow and the bear shall graze,
together their young shall lie down;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.

Isaiah 11:7