Dog
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
—an animal often mentioned in Scripture. Under the Mosaic law it was unclean, and its price could not be brought as a sacred offering (Deut. 23:18). “Dead dog” was a term of extreme self-abasement or insult (1 Sam. 24:14; 2 Sam. 9:8). Dogs guarded flocks (Job 30:1), roamed streets, and consumed refuse or unburied bodies. Yet Ecclesiastes observes that “a living dog is better than a dead lion” (Eccles. 9:4), since life retains hope. Tobit’s dog accompanies him in the deuterocanonical narrative (Tob. 6:1; 11:4).