Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 25:5
And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood,
5. Skins and wood.
rams’ skins dyed red ] These formed the second covering over the certains (Exo 26:14).
sealskins ] Heb. ‘skins of tshim,’ a word of uncertain meaning. In Arab. tuas or duas means a dolphin, which makes it probable that the dugong (Malay duyong, a sea-cow) is meant, an animal in general appearance not unlike a dolphin, though with a larger and blunter nose (see ill. in Toy’s Ezekiel, in SBOT., p. 124), species of which are common in the Red Sea; their thick and hard skins supply the Bedawin of the Sin. Peninsula with material for sandals ( NHB. 44 f.; EB. i. 450 f.). An alternative view has been propounded lately, which may also be right, that taash is a loan-word from the Egypt. ts, ‘leather’ (Bondi, Aegyptiaca, 1 ff., with a full discussion of different views). The third or outermost covering over the curtains forming the ‘Dwelling’ (Exo 26:14, &c.), wrappings for the sacred vessels on transport (Num 4:6 ff.), and women’s sandals (Eze 16:10), are mentioned as made of taash skins. AV. badgers, though some such animal is advocated in the Talm., lacks philological foundation, and has no probability. It is doubtful also whether either seals or porpoises (RV. and RVm.) are sufficiently common in either the Red Sea or the Medit. to be the animals intended.
acacia ] Heb. shiim [for shinim ], shewn to be acacia, from san, the Arab. name of that tree. Several species of acacia are found in Palestine, the Sin. Peninsula, and the Arabian desert ( EB. s.v. Shittah tree): the Acacia seyl flourishes in dry wdys, and grows freely in the Peninsula, and along the W. shore of the Dead Sea: it is a gnarled and thorny tree, some 15 25 feet in height: and its wood is hard, close-grained, and durable (cf. the rend. of LXX. ). According to Doughty ( Arab. Des. ii. 678, cited in EB. l.c.), another species is used for shipbuilding on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea. The wood of the tree is mentioned only in the Pent., in connexion with the Tent of Meeting: the tree itself is mentioned also in Isa 41:19. See further NHB. 390 ff., DB. Shiah tree, the illustration above, p. 181; and the note on Joe 3:18 in the Camb. Bible.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 5. Rams’ skins dyed red] oroth eylim meoddamim, literally, the skins of red rams. It is a fact attested by many respectable travellers, that in the Levant sheep are often to be met with that have red or violet-coloured fleeces. And almost all ancient writers speak of the same thing. Homer describes the rams of Polyphemus as having a violet-coloured fleece.
, ,
, , .
Odyss., lib. ix., ver. 425.
“Strong were the rams, with native purple fair,
Well fed, and largest of the fleecy care.”
POPE.
Pliny, Aristotle, and others mention the same. And from facts of this kind it is very probable that the fable of the golden fleece had its origin. In the Zetland Isles I have seen sheep with variously coloured fleeces, some white, some black, some black and white, some of a very fine chocolate colour. Beholding those animals brought to my recollection those words of Virgil: –
Ipse sed in pratis Aries jam suave rubenti
Murice, jam croceo mutabit vellera luto.
Eclog. iv., ver. 43.
“No wool shall in dissembled colours shine;
But the luxurious father of the fold,
With native purple or unborrow’d gold,
Beneath his pompous fleece shall proudly sweat,
And under Tyrian robes the lamb shall bleat.”
DRYDEN.
Badgers’ skins] oroth techashim. Few terms have afforded greater perplexity to critics and commentators than this. Bochart has exhausted the subject, and seems to have proved that no kind of animal is here intended, but a colour. None of the ancient versions acknowledge an animal of any kind except the Chaldee, which seems to think the badger is intended, and from it we have borrowed our translation of the word. The Septuagint and Vulgate have skins dyed a violet colour; the Syriac, azure; the Arabic, black; the Coptic, violet; the modern Persic, ram-skins, c. The colour contended for by Bochart is the hysginus, which is a very deep blue. So Pliny, Coccoque tinctum Tyrio tingere, ut fieret hysginum. “They dip crimson in purple to make the colour called hysginus.” – Hist. Nat., lib. ix., c. 65, edit. Bipont.
Shittim wood] By some supposed to be the finest species of the cedar by others, the acacia Nilotica, a species of thorn, solid, light, and very beautiful. This acacia is known to have been plentiful in Egypt, and it abounds in Arabia Deserta, the very place in which Moses was when he built the tabernacle; and hence it is reasonable to suppose that he built it of that wood, which was every way proper for his purpose.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
A kind of wood growing in Egypt and the deserts of Arabia, very durable and precious. See Exo 35:24; Num 33:49; Isa 41:19; Joe 3:18.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. badgers’ skinsThe badgerwas an unclean animal, and is not a native of the Eastrather somekind of fish, of the leather of which sandals are made in the East.[See on Ex 39:34 and Eze16:10.]
shittim woodor Shittah(Isa 41:19), the acacia, ashrub which grows plentifully in the deserts of Arabia, yielding alight, strong, and beautiful wood, in long planks.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And rams’ skins died red,…. Of these were made a covering for the tent or tabernacle:
and badgers’ skins, which were for the same use: the Septuagint version calls them hyacinth or blue skins; according to which, they seem to be the rams’ skins died blue; and so Josephus b seems to have understood it; and it is much questionable whether the same creature is meant we call the badger, since that with the Israelites was an unclean creature; nor is its skin made use of for shoes, or well could be, as the skin of this creature is said to be, Eze 16:10. Jarchi says it was a kind of beast only at that time; and Aben Ezra says, it was known in those days but not now: and
shittim wood; supposed by the Jewish writers, as Kimchi c, and Ben Melech from him, to be the best and most excellent kind of cedar: Aben Ezra conjectures, and he delivers it but as a conjecture, that there might be near Mount Sinai a forest of “shittim” trees; and while the Israelites were there they cut them down for booths, which they might carry with them when they removed from thence; for, he says, Moses did not speak of the tabernacle till after the day of atonement: and since Acacia is by much the largest and the most common tree of the deserts of Arabia, as Dr. Shaw d observes, he thinks there some reason to conjecture, that the “shittim wood”, whereof the several utensils of the tabernacle, c. were made, was the wood of Acacia: and long ago it was the opinion of Cordus e that the “shittim wood” was the Acacia of Dioscorides and it is the same with the Senton or Santon of the Arabians, which is the Egyptian thorn that grows in the wilderness, of which Herodotus f says, they cut wood of two cubits out of and make ships of burden of it: this is said to grow in the parts of Egypt at a distance from the sea; in the mountains of Sinai, at the Red sea, about Suez, in the barren wilderness; which circumstances seem to determine it to be the “shittim wood” g: some places where it might grow in plenty seem to have had their names from it, see
Nu 25:1.
b Ut supra. (Antiq. l. 3. c. 6. sect. 1.) c Sepher Shorash. rad. d Travels, p. 144. Ed. 2. e Apud Drus. Heb. Adag. Decur. 3. Adag. 4. f Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 96. g Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 2. p. 204.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(5) Rams skins dyed red.North Africa has always been celebrated for the production of the best possible leather. Herodotus describes the manufacture of his own times (Hist. iv. 189). Even at the present day, we bind our best books in morocco. Brilliant colours always were, and still are, affected by the North African races, and their red skins have been famous in all ages. It is probable that the Israelites had brought with them many skins of this kind out of Egypt.
Badgers skins.The badger is not a native of North Africa, nor of the Arabian desert; and the translation of the Hebrew takhash by badger is a very improbable conjecture. In Arabic, tukhash or dukhash is the name of a marine animal resembling the seal; or, perhaps it should rather be said, is applied with some vagueness to a number of sea-animals, as seals, dugongs, dolphins, sharks, and dog-fish. The skins here spoken of are probably those of some one or more of these animals. They formed the outer covering of the Tabernacle (Exo. 26:14).
Shittim wood.That the shittah (plural, shittim) was a species of Acacia is now generally admitted.
It was certainly not the palm; and there are no trees in the Sinaitic region from which boards could be cut (see Exo. 26:15) except the palm and the acacia. The Sinaitic acacia (A. Seyal) is a gnarled and thorny tree, somewhat like a solitary hawthorn in its habit and manner of growth, but much larger (Tristram). At present it does not, in the Sinaitic region, grow to such a size as would admit of planks, ten cubits long by one and a half wide, being cut from it; but, according to Canon Tristram (Nat. Hist. Of the Bible, p. 392), it attains such a size in Palestine, and therefore may formerly have done so in Arabia. The wood is hard and close-grained, of an orange colour with a darker heart, well adapted for cabinetwork.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Rams’ skins dyed red “These skins may have been tanned and coloured like the leather now known as red morocco, which is said to have been manufactured in Libya from the remotest antiquity . ” Speaker’s Commentary . Others have explained the words as meaning simply skins of red rams .
Badgers’ skins Besides the mention in Eze 16:10, the word , here translated badger, occurs only in connexion with the curtains and coverings of the tabernacle. The Sept. and Vulg. seem to understand it as the name of a colour, hyacinthine. The Targum and the Syriac translate it by the word , which Levy explains ( Chald . Worterbuch) as a red-spotted beast . Kitto’s Cyclopaedia maintains that it was probably an animal of the antelope tribe, but could not have been the badger, which is not found in Asia so far south as Palestine and Arabia . It is probably best understood of a kind of seal which is said to be found in the waters about Arabia . “The word bears a near resemblance to the Arabic tuchash, which appears to be the general name given to the seals, dugongs, and dolphins found in the Red sea, (Tristram,) and, according to some authorities, to the sharks and dog-fish. (Furst.) The substance spoken of would thus appear to have been leather formed from the skins of marine animals, which was well adapted as a protection against the weather. Pliny speaks of tents made of seal skins as proof against the stroke of lightning, ( Nat. Hist., 2: 56,) and one of these is said to have been used by Augustus whenever he travelled. The skins of the dolphin and dugong are cut into sandals by the modern Arabs, and this may explain Eze 16:10. ” Speaker’s Commentary .
Shittim wood The wood of the acacia tree, a very hard and durable kind of tree which abounds in the Sinaitic peninsula .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exo 25:5. Rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins A badger being an unclean animal according to the law, Bochart, after several of the best interpreters, insists that the passage should be rendered, rams’ skins dyed of a red, and of a violet or purple colour. “All the ancient versions agree,” says Parkhurst, “that the word rendered badger, means not an “animal, but a colour.” See his Lexicon on the word . Shittim-wood, rendered by the LXX incorruptible wood, is generally supposed to mean cedar. St. Jerome, however, says, that the shittim-wood resembles the white thorn; that it is of admirable beauty, solidity, strength and smoothness. It is thought that he means the black acacia. See more in Calmet’s Dictionary on Shittim; who observes further, that this tree is very thorny, and has even its bark covered with very sharp thorns; and hence, perhaps, it had the Hebrew name shittah, from making animals decline or turn aside, lest they should be wounded by it. Dr. Shaw is of opinion, that the acacia (being by much the largest and most common tree of the deserts of Arabia, as it might likewise have been of the plains of Shittim over against Jericho) supplied this wood for the tabernacle: “this tree abounds,” says he, “with flowers of a globular figure, and of an excellent smell, which may further induce us to take it for the same with the shittah-tree, which, in Isa 41:19 is joined with the myrtle and other sweet-smelling plants.” Trav. p. 444. Scarlet, in the fourth verse, is the worm of scarlet, from the worm which feeds on the shrub whence the scarlet dye is made. Goats-hair in the original is only goats; but the hair of goats, which was in high price in the eastern countries, is generally supposed to be meant. The use of these several particulars will appear as we proceed.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Exo 25:5 And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood,
Ver. 5. Shittim wood. ] A kind of cedar that rotteth not.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
shittim = acacia.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
shittim wood
i.e. acacia.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Exo 26:14
shittim wood: Exo 26:15, Exo 26:26, Exo 26:37, Exo 27:1, Exo 36:20
Reciprocal: Exo 35:9 – General Num 33:49 – Abelshittim Deu 10:3 – I made Eze 16:10 – badgers’ skin
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
25:5 And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and {c} shittim wood,
(c) Which is thought to be a kindred of Cedar, which will not rot.