Symbolic Vs. Literal Bible Meanings Explained

Photo adapted by Bahá’í Writings As Art.

by Glenn Franco Simmons

While listening attentively to my Lutheran pastor’s sermons in Goleta, Calif., my impressionable mind pictured wolves cuddling with lambs in green meadows, lions playing tag with calves, and leopards napping peacefully beside goats.

As I matured into a teen, I pondered if these were symbolic or literal meanings. I eventually found the answers to my questions in my current Faith. There are both.

So, what are some of the Biblical verses that may have sparked my young imagination?

• “The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together; and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze. Their young ones will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah 11:6-9

• “In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, and will make them lie down safely.” ~ Hosea 2:18

• “‘I will make with them a covenant of peace and will cause evil animals to cease out of the land. They will dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.” ~ Ezekiel 34:25

• “‘I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. ~ Leviticus 26:6

I also found the pastor’s visions of a peaceful future comforting. Sitting there in the pews, alone as a third-grader, I wonder now if it was Micah and Isaiah that I heard the pastor mention:

• “And he will judge between many peoples, and will decide concerning strong nations afar off. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more. But every man will sit under his vine and under his fig tree. No one will make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of Armies has spoken.” ~ Micah 4:3-4

• “He will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” ~ Isaiah 2:4

These verses’ peaceful themes are carried forward in the Bahá’í Faith.

• “The Tabernacle of unity,” Baha’u’llah states in The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, “... has been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. … Of one tree are all ye the fruit and of one bough the leaves. … The world is but one country and mankind its citizens. … Let not a man glory in that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.”

(Bible verses are from the public-domain World English Bible®. Photo courtesy of Public Domain Clip Art Photos and Images. Excerpt from the Bahá’í Writings used according to Bahá’í International Community terms.)