the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Badger
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or This is unquestionably a wrong interpretation of the word tachash, since the badger is not found in Southern Asia, and has not as yet been noticed out of Europe. The word occurs in the plural form in Exodus 25:5; Exodus 26:14; Exodus 35:7; Exodus 35:23; Exodus 36:19; Exodus 39:34; Numbers 4:6; Numbers 4:8; Numbers 4:10-12; Numbers 4:14; Numbers 4:25; and Ezekiel 16:10; and in connection, with oroth, skins, is used to denote the covering of the Tabernacle. Negroland and Central and Eastern Africa contain a number of ruminating animals of the great antelope family; which are known to the natives under various names, such as pacasse, empacasse, thacasse, facasse, and tachaitze, all more or less varieties of the word tachash: they are of considerable size; often of slaty and purple grey colors, and might be termed stag-goats and ox-goats. Of these one or more occur in the hunting-scenes on Egyptian monuments, and therefore we may conclude that the skins were accessible in abundance, and may have been dressed with the hair on for coverings of baggage, and for boots, such as we see worn by the human figures in the same processions. Thus we have the greater number of the conditions of the question sufficiently realized to enable us to draw the inference that tachash refers to a ruminant of the Aigocerine or Damaline groups, most likely of an iron-grey or slaty-colored species.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Badger'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/b/badger.html.
