But might not the account at 2 Samuel 12:1-6 be cited as a justification for some of the practices mentioned earlier in dealing with pets? There the prophet Nathan told King David of a poor man who bought a small female lamb, preserving it alive while it grew up with him and his sons. The account says: “From his morsel it would eat, and from his cup it would drink, and in his bosom it would lie, and it came to be as a daughter to him.”

First, the expression “from his morsel it would eat, and from his cup it would drink” does not say that the lamb sat at the table with the family or that it shared the same drinking vessel with the man. It merely says that the man gave up some of his food and drink on behalf of the lamb. “Cup” in the Bible often does not refer to the drinking vessel itself but to what it contains, the ‘portion’ in the cup, and evidently the man poured out some of his drink for the lamb to lap up. (Compare Matthew 26:39, 42; John 18:11; Mark 10:38-40.) The man also kept it warm at night by letting it sleep next to him. Why? It was obviously to keep the young creature alive, separated as it was from its mother.