Bible Animals. John George Wood

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      A species of dugong (Halicore hemprichii) is the animal that has been selected as the Badger of the Scriptures. It is one of the marine mammalia, and always lives near the shore, where it can find the various algæ on which it feeds. It is a gregarious animal, and, as it frequently ascends rivers for some distance, it may be captured in sufficient numbers to make both its flesh and skin useful. Moreover, it is of considerable size, fourteen or fifteen feet in length being its usual dimensions, so that a comparatively small number of the skins would be required for the covering of the Tabernacle.

      That shoes can be made of it is evident from the fact that at the present day shoes, or rather sandals, are made from its hide, and are commonly used by the Bedouins. But the very qualities and peculiarities which render it a fit material for the sandal of a half-naked Bedouin Arab, who has to walk continually over hard, hot, sandy, and rough ground, would surely make it unsuitable for the delicate shoes worn by a woman of rank who spends her time in the house, and the rest of whose clothing is of fine linen and silk, embroidered with gold and jewels. In our own country, the hobnailed shoes of the ploughman and the slight shoe of a lady are made of very different materials, and it is reasonable to conjecture that such was the case when the passage in question was written.

      Then Dr. Robinson, who admits that the hide of the dugong could hardly have been used as the material for a lady's shoe, thinks that it would have answered very well for the roof of the Tabernacle, because it was large, clumsy, and coarse. It seems strange that he did not also perceive that the two latter qualities would completely disqualify such skins for that service. Everything clumsy and coarse was studiously prohibited, and nothing but the very best was considered fit for the Tabernacle of the Lord. By special revelation, Moses was instructed to procure, not merely the ordinary timber of the country for the framework—not only the fabrics which would keep out rain and wind—not simply the metals in common use, from which to make the lamps and other furniture—not the ordinary oils for supplying the lamps; but, on the contrary, the finest linen, the most elaborate embroidery, the rarest woods, the purest gold, the costliest gems, were demanded, and nothing common or inferior was accepted. The commonest material that was permitted was the long, soft fleece of rams' wool; but, even in that case, the wool had to be dyed of the regal scarlet—a dye so rare and so costly that none but the wealthiest rulers could use it. Even the very oil that burned in the lamps must be the purest olive-oil, prepared expressly for that purpose.

      The very fact, therefore, that any article was plentiful and could easily be obtained, would be a proof that such article was not used for so sacred a purpose; while it is impossible that anything coarse and clumsy could have been accepted for the construction of that Tabernacle within which the Shekinah ever burned over the Mercy-seat—over which the cloud rested by day, and the fire shone by night, visible external proofs of the Divine glory within.

      We therefore dismiss from our minds the possibility of accepting any material for it which was not exceptionably valuable, and which would be employed in the uses of ordinary life. The great object of the minutely-elaborate directions which were given through Moses to the Israelites was evidently to keep continually before their eyes the great truth that they owed all to God, and that their costliest offerings were but acknowledgments of their dependence.

      We will now presume that the Tachash of the Pentateuch and Ezekiel is really the animal which we know by the name of Badger. It exists throughout the whole of the district traversed by the Israelites, though it is not very plentiful, nor is it easily taken. Had such been the case, its fur would not have been employed in the service of the sanctuary.

      It is nocturnal in its habits, and very seldom is seen during the hours of daylight, so that it cannot be captured by chase. It is not gregarious, so СКАЧАТЬ