Rabbi Yudan and Rabbi Pinḥas:20They discussed why the animals were killed in the Flood along with mankind. Rabbi Yudan said: This is analogous to a king who entrusted his son to a teacher who caused him to stray onto an evil path. The king became angry at his son and killed him. The king said: Was it not this man who caused him to stray onto an evil path?
My son is lost; should this man endure? That is why: “[And the Lord said, I will obliterate…] from man to animal, to crawling creatures, to bird of the heavens.”21So too, the animals were the instrument through which mankind was led astray, as people would gorge themselves on fattened animals and fowl. Rabbi Pinḥas said: This is analogous to a king who was marrying off his son and prepared a wedding chamber for him.
He whitewashed it, painted it, and decorated it. The king grew angry at his son and killed him. What did he do? He entered the wedding chamber and began shattering the wood strips, breaking the walls, and ripping the curtains.
The king said: Did I not prepare this only for my son? My son is lost; should this [structure] endure? That is why God destroyed “from man to animal…to bird of the heavens.” That is what is written: “I will destroy everything from upon the face of the earth – the utterance of the Lord.
I will destroy man and animal, I will destroy the bird of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks of the wicked” (Zephaniah 1:2–3) – it was they [the animals] that caused the wicked to stumble. When one would hunt a bird, he would say to it: Go get fat and come back, and it would go and get fat and come back [to be eaten].22Their hedonism, which ultimately led to their forsaking God, was facilitated by the animals, the birds, etc.