For every kind of beasts... — Compare the margin, and read more exactly, thus: Every nature of beasts and birds, and creeping things, and things of the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed, by the nature of man. All kinds have been mastered by mankind, as promised at creation (Genesis 1:26-28). There lives no creature which may not be won by kindness and gratitude; and —
“He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God Who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
The four-fold division of animal life above is curiously like and unlike that in Acts 10:17, where we read of “four-footed beasts of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and fowls of the air.”