Fox

Scripture references: Judges 15:4–5; Nehemiah 4:3; Psalm 63:10; Song of Songs 2:15; Lamentations 5:18; Ezekiel 13:4; Luke 13:32

The Hebrew term, שׁוּעָל (shu'al) is the fox, distinguishable from the jackal (tan/shu'al overlap in some passages, but the majority of shu'al usages refer to the fox rather than the jackal, which is typically tan or tannin). The fox in the biblical world is the Palestinian red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and the Blanford's fox (Vulpes cana), both common in the Levant. The creature is associated with cunning, with ruin (foxes inhabit deserted places), and in one passage, Luke 13, with political craftiness.

Samson's foxes, Judges 15:4–5, "So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails. And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards." Samson's revenge for his wife being given to his companion is total economic destruction: 300 foxes, 300 torches, every grain field and olive grove of the Philistines burned. The operation requires catching 300 live foxes, a nearly impossible task, which the text presents without comment. The foxes as the instruments of harvest destruction.

The little foxes, Song of Songs 2:15, "Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom." The vineyard is the image of love in the Song; the little foxes are the small, seemingly insignificant threats that can destroy what is in blossom. The verse interrupts the lyric of the beloved's arrival, the foxes intrude on the vineyard's most vulnerable moment. Whether the foxes are literal (foxes do eat grapes and dig under vines) or metaphorical (small threats that undermine blossoming love), the image is of the destroyer who enters at the point of maximum fragility.

Tobiah's mockery, Nehemiah 4:3, Tobiah the Ammonite mocks the Jewish wall-builders: "Yes, what they are building, if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!" The fox is the image of what trivial weight would be sufficient to collapse the wall. Tobiah's contempt for the project uses the lightest, most agile creature as his measure. The irony of the passage is that the wall holds, Tobiah is wrong, and his mockery is recorded against him permanently.

Foxes among ruins, Psalm 63:10; Lamentations 5:18, Psalm 63:10: "they shall be a portion for jackals/foxes." Lamentations 5:18: "for Mount Zion which lies desolate; foxes prowl over it." The fox as the creature of desolation, who inhabits destroyed places, who prowls where human habitation once was. The fox on Mount Zion is the sign of Israel's fall; the sacred mountain has become the haunted wild.

False prophets like foxes, Ezekiel 13:4, "Your prophets have been like foxes among ruins, O Israel." The false prophets follow the ruin rather than going up into the breaches of the wall. The fox inhabits the already-ruined place; the true prophet stands in the gap. Ezekiel's false prophets have chosen the fox's posture: occupying the collapse rather than preventing it.

Go tell that fox, Luke 13:32, When some Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him, Jesus responds: "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.'" The Greek word is alōpēx, fox. Jesus applies the fox-term to Herod Antipas, the cunning, small, destructive political creature who imagines himself capable of redirecting Jesus's course. Jesus does not evade; he sends a message back and names the day of his completion.

The fox is the creature of cunning, ruin, and small but real destruction, who Samson drafts for wholesale Philistine harvest destruction, who the Song names as the small threat to the blossoming vineyard, who inhabits Mount Zion in its desolation, who Ezekiel assigns to the false prophets, and who Jesus names Herod in Luke 13. The Sanctum holds it as Canon-tier: from Samson's torches to "Go tell that fox."