Beasts in the Valley
And he said, Thus saith the LORD, Make this valley full of ditches.
17 For thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts.
2 Kings 3:16-17
Now we see the terrain of the valley. I don't know if you've ever seen a ditch before, but most of them look like little shallow impressions dug into the earth. At least, that's what drainage ditches look like. The thing is drainage ditches can be used for a lot of things such as running rainwater away from places it shouldn't be or even shoring up building foundations. You know how most buildings are set into the earth on foundations dug down a little to help the building keep its' shape.
Digging drainage ditches helps corral a little rain or flood water in the proper direction it should go. But what if you have a lot of it. Then you would need an awfully big ditch for that wouldn't you. See the white space in the middle, between the two lines. That's very much like a ditch. Now let's create a bigger one.
This one right here is known as a valley. A valley can be found between two pieces of flat land. I don't know if you've ever seen a lake before, but the bottom of the lake would be like a valley only filled in with water. Problem is, once people see the water, then they assume that the lake wasn't once a valley before it was filled in. The other problem with a valley is when people see one and assume that it is a low place in between several mountains. Valleys though don't take on a special size or shape. A lot of them can be a vast distance across filled with little ridges of land known as small hills or smaller depressions that could be considered a ditch. All these just make up the terrain of the valley. Then off in the distance you can see the mountains or higher areas of land rising on up. This is the conception of the valley in its' natural form.
A lot of creatures can be found here as the beasts of the mountains meet with the beasts in the grasslands or the valley. Therefore, you can often find lots of fertile farmland down in the valley because the rain washes dirt and other things down off the mountains into the valley below. Other animals that might be found here include those of the fields and even the forests. It seems valleys can have an awful lot of other things included in them not just the obvious. The beasts that live in the mountains like goats and coneys that prefer lots of rocks will often come down and visit the valley often for food.
It's sort of a like a symbiotic relationship if you know what I mean. One thing lives off another because it gets something it needs and so does the other one in turn. Without the other, neither one could survive very well or comfortably. In the text, the Lord provides his people with everything needed such as water and provision for their cattle and livestock in this valley that's full of places for the water to hide and also the food. At the same time though, there's nothing we could ever offer the Lord to pay him back for all he's done to keep, sustain, and even preserve all of life. Therefore, the nature of faith is not a symbiotic relationship but rather a dependent one as the lesser bows to the greater.