Categories: Consider
Date: Feb 11, 2010
Title: Feeble Mountain Folk
As we look at many ways to build our lives
on the Rock of Christ, we’d be remiss not
to check out an example in nature. In fact,
the Bible features these little creatures, described as
"feeble folk." Poetically describing the wisdom of
God’s creatures, Proverbs 30 calls our attention to
the natural world. "There be four things which are
little upon the earth," the writer declares:
but they are exceeding wise: the ants are a people
not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the
summer; the conies are but a feeble folk, yet make
they their houses in the rocks; the locusts have
no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;
the spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in
kings’ palaces (Proverbs 30:24-28).
Ants, locusts, and spiders are familiar to most of
us. But what in the world, I have often wondered,
is a coney? Historically, the word has been used for
rabbits, but rabbits don’t make their houses "in the
rocks." So what creature is Proverbs describing?
Many scientists and Bible scholars believe the
"feeble folk" described here are the little-known
mammals that dwell in family clusters high in the
mountains of Africa and the Middle East. With their
scarcely regulated body temperatures, they bask in
the sun like lizards or huddle together to keep warm.
Their padded, sweaty feet keep them from slipping
on rock surfaces, and their noisy songs, screams, and
twitters echo throughout the day.
Have you identified this strange creature yet?
Called conies, dassies, pimbi, and rock rabbits, the
unusual star of Proverbs 30 is most commonly
known as the rock hyrax. Their scientific name is
Procavia capensis.
LIFE IN THE ROCKS
Unlike most mammals, hyraxes can’t regulate
their own body temperatures well. Their homes in
the rocks help keep them from overheating or getting
too cold. If the temperature outside is inhospitable,
they don’t go out. They spend lots of time huddling
and "heaping" with other members of their colonies.
One dominant male heads a group of twenty or more
females.
Hyraxes depend on the strengths of their environment,
not just on their own abilities, to live.
Believers who are called to live on the rock of Christ
can see why the Proverbs 30 writer would point the
hyrax out as a good example.
The hyrax is specially suited for life in the rocks
in several ways. Its flexible, moist feet act as suction
cups, pulling up a flap of skin to help the hyrax climb
up steep rock faces. Hyraxes have four toes on their
front feet and three on their hind feet, complete with
hoof-like toenails.
The rock hyrax is an extremely noisy mammal.
The members of a colony communicate via whistles,
twitters, songs, and long, rising territorial shrieks
that may sound like a woman screaming. Hyraxes have
twenty-one different calls, and they use them all to
advantage.
Hyraxes are herbivores-vegetarians. They get much
of their water from the grasses, fruit, and other vegetation
they eat, which is a good thing, because the rock hyrax
doesn’t stray far from its home in the rocky mountain
crevices. Their babies are born, after seven months’ gestation,
fully developed and energetic.
When threatened by a small predator, a hyrax will bite
to defend itself. But when trying to escape a big predator,
such as a python, leopard, or caracal, a hyrax once again
acts like a godly Christian-it hides itself in the rocks.
The Proverbs 30 writer astutely called these creatures
"feeble folk" that are wise to make their homes in a protected
place.
STRANGE COUSINS
Hyraxes are among the most unusual animals in the
world. While they look superficially like rabbits, pikas,
or guinea pigs, the resemblance stops there. Rock hyraxes
and their two cousins, the tree hyrax and the yellow-spotted
hyrax, have far stranger relatives.
Evolutionary scientists look for "common ancestors,"
while creation scientists classify animals by similarity to
help them learn more about the types God has placed in
creation. But the hyrax’s classification might surprise you.
This odd little mammal, no bigger than ten pounds, is
closest in type not to rabbits or rodents but to elephants
and sirenians (dugongs and manatees). With these creatures,
the hyrax shares flexible feet, dental structure,
unusually placed mammary glands, and other anatomical
features.
But elephants and sirenians aren’t the only creatures
hyraxes resemble. They also share features with rhinoceroses,
hippopotamuses, horses, and odd-in-their-own-right
South American creatures such as tapirs and capybaras.
STRENGTH OF THE ROCK
Proverbs 30 commends three animals for their hard
work and pro-activity-ants, spiders, and locusts-workers
with strengths and skills to boast of. It lists the hyrax
alone for reliance on something else. Rock hyraxes depend
on their environment to provide them with strength they
don’t have in themselves. In their furry, huddling way,
these little creatures teach us something important. In the
end, it’s not about what we can do, but about the strength
of the Rock in whom we live.
Rachel Starr Thomson is a homeschool graduate and the
oldest of twelve children. She is the author of Tales of the
Heartily Homeschooled and the fantasy epic Worlds Unseen.
She lives in southern Ontario. You can e-mail her at
thomson.rachel@gmail.com.