{Here’s a Quora post I made a while back. :) }

Q: “Do you think that when animals are shown using human language to communicate in the Bible, some type of supernatural puppetry is taking place?”

When the serpent speaks in the garden, the Bible says it was Satan. The idea that Satan possessed a snake is extrabiblical, if not contradictory to Scripture. Satan is an angel, who is referred to both as a man, and as a serpent. There is possibly a connection to why God allowed animals to be eaten after the flood, and to the angels intermarrying with the descendants of Adam before the flood; it seems there was a connection between heaven and earth that was severed at that time, which may have had to do with angels having a connection with animals, in fact being both human and animal at once.

Balaam’s donkey was given the ability to speak, and Scripture says it spoke. If it was being used as a puppet then neither of these things would have really been true, so no, no puppetry taking place according to Scripture.

In visions animals talk, as well as other things, like horns. As well as spirits these things often represent human beings or nations (e.g. Alexander the great as a one-horned goat).

However, one point which is probably closest to supernatural puppetry I think would be the dove at Christ’s baptism. Rather than a vision, the Spirit appeared in a “bodily form” the Scripture says. It was still symbolic of course, showing the relationship that existed between the Father and Son, but it was an actual animal involved.

Another case of God making animals do things would be the kine that drew the cart with the ark from the land of the Philistines, though it was more like they were simply being driven by angels than being puppets. Similar would be when God brought animals to Adam to be named, and brought animals to Noah to be saved. It was more directed than when God blew locusts into and back out of Egypt with wind. There were more directed plagues, like hornets and lions. There were the she-bears that punished the children who mocked Elisha, the lion who killed the man who refused to smite the prophet at God’s command, and the lion that killed “the prophet from Judah” but then stood without eating him or killing his ass. There were the lions who did no harm to Daniel, then furiously devoured the men and their families who had accused him. There are those kinds of things.

2023/03/04 #sabbathposts