Is the jackal mentioned in the Bible?

The well-known animal, that burrows in the ground. Matt. 8:20. They will eat anything, and are especially fond of grapes. Cant. 2:15. They are very sly, and cunning in catching their prey; which accounts for Herod Antipas being called a fox by the Lord. Luke 13:32. It is supposed that the same Hebrew word, shual, includes the JACKAL, which may be intended in Ps. 63:10, and indeed in other passages. The canis aureus is the common Jackal of Palestine.

"Hazar-shual," "the enclosure of the jackal" — "the jackal-pen." "Shual" is the word translated "foxes" in the common version, but for which, in general "jackal" is allowed to be better. Both are "burrowers," as the word means; but the jackal only is a carrion-feeder, as Ps. 63:10, and gregarious, as Samson's exploit would imply. (Judges 15:4.) The two former habits, and the whole connection in which we find the word here, induce the belief that it is the symbol of the evil nature, the flesh, with its earthliness and its greed for corruption. This jackal-nature cannot be slain, moreover. It can be "penned," and thus practically "annulled," the real word in Rom. 6:6, the fruit of faith in what the cross has done for us: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Faith indeed must keep the pen, even when deliverance is fully known; and so it is further written, "Reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus;" and "Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." (vv. 11, 12.) The knowledge of deliverance, however, by a soul practically in the faith of it, pens the jackal-nature.

Ha zar shu’al Enclosure of the jackal

Shu’al - A jackal

Surely there is no prayer when He puts forth the hand, Though they cry out, in His destroying. For have I not wept over one whose day is hard? Was [not] my soul sad over the needy? Yet when I looked for good, evil came, And when I waited for light, darkness came. My bowels are made to boil, and are not silent; Days of affliction have overtaken me. I am going as blackened without the sun; I stand up in the assembly, I cry out. Of jackals am I become brother, and companion of ostriches. My skin off me is black, and my bones are burned with heat, And my harp is [turned] to wailing, and my pipe to the voice of weepers.

These are mentioned in scripture as a sign that a place was deserted and given up to desolation. In Job the poor outcasts are described as taking shelter under them. Job 30:7; Prov. 24:31; Isa. 34:13; Hosea 9:6; Zeph. 2:9.

But these false prophets had failed in all this. Great as was their pretension, it was as far as possible from the reality. "O Israel, thy prophets have been like jackals in waste places" — a significant figure indeed of those who preyed upon the corruption around, hiding from the light in the barren wilderness which could only furnish them the covert that they sought. In pretension they were angels of light indeed — as Satan's emissaries among God's people constantly are — but the evil which prospered around them bore them true witness. They had seen but vanity, says the Lord, and divined lies. They should not, therefore, be in the counsel of His people, nor written in the register of the house of Israel, nor possess themselves of that land which could be held only according to the tenure of the covenant. Thus they too must know that He was the Lord Jehovah. Yet these were the men that swarmed around in proportion as the true prophet of the Lord was scarce, banding together, confirming one another's words, one building up a wall and another daubing it with untempered mortar, which could never stand the storm that was at hand. God would bring it down completely to the dust, so that the foundation upon which it was built would be discovered — a lie, all through, which could work but the destruction of those who trusted in it. For their prophesying of peace could but provoke war, and the pretension of security provoke God to sweep away the refuge of lies for, however men misrepresent Him, Jehovah must still and evermore be the Lord; and as against the men who misrepresent Him the Lord will be found Jehovah — the unchanging One. This is the constant reiteration all the way through. Jehovah is arising in His own behalf when there remains as it were no longer any witness for Him.

"And the wild-oxen shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be drunken with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For [it is] the day of Jehovah's vengeance, the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night and day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; and the owl (or, bittern) and the raven shall dwell therein. And he shall stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none [shall be] there; and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof; and it shall be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches. And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there, and shall find her a place of rest. There shall the arrowsnake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: yea, there shall the kites be gathered, every one with her mate. Seek ye out of the book of Jehovah and read: not one of these shall be missing, none shall want her mate; for my mouth, it has commanded, and his spirit, it has gathered them. And he has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein" (vv. 7-17). There will be one destruction upon the mountains of Israel, but another special carnage in Edom. It is important to bear in mind that this is a future judgement: if any one were to apply it rigorously and in all its extent to the times of Nebuchadnezzar, confusion must result, perverting either scripture or the facts. The contrary rather was seen then. The nations had it all their own way. There was no such thing as God having a great sacrifice of all nations, though treacherous Edom suffered. The real fulfilment will be at the end of the age, though even then will be merely a tremendous convulsion of nature: the total dissolution of heaven and earth will be at the end of the millennium. The Spirit of God in a measure puts the scenes together here.

That the Chaldean foe should be bitter in reproach and cruel in punishment was not wonderful; but alas! the chosen nation's cup was not full of the indignity they must drink till they were the bitterest, out of sheer want and woe, against their own kin. "Even the dragons [or jackals] draw out the breast, they suckle their young: the daughter of my people [is] cruel like the ostriches in the wilderness." It is of the last bird we read in Job 39:14-17, "which leaves her eggs in the earth, and warms them in the dust, and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear; because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding."

Even the jackals draw out the breast,