Exodus 25:5

And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood,

Rams' skins dyed red - red morocco leather (see the processes of tanning and dyeing leather among the ancient Egyptians described, Wilkinson's 'Ancient Egypt,' vol 3:, ch. 9:, pp. 155-157; 'Egypt's Testimony,' pp. 191, 198; Hengstenberg's 'Books of Moses,' pp. 138, 139).

'There is a definiteness in the name rams' skins which is worth noticing. From time out of mind the southern part of Syria and Palestine has been supplied with mutton from the great plains and deserts on the north, east, and south, and the shepherds do not ordinarily bring the females to market. The vast flocks which annually come from Armenia and Northern Syria are nearly all males. The leather, therefore, is literally rams' skins dyed red' ('The Land and the Book'). Badgers' skins, х wª`orot (H5785) tªchaashiym (H8476).] The Septuagint has: dermata huakinthina; and in like manner all the ancient versions translate the original word as denoting some colour. But Jewish writers are nearly unanimous in regarding tachash (H8477) to be an animal (see Gesenius, who, after assigning four reasons for considering tachash (H8477) an animal, not a colour, says, 'Not improbably the Hebrews designated under this one name both the seal, the badger, and also other like animals which they did not know nor distinguish accurately; while at a later period the name was applied by the Arabs and Western nations only to certain species of these animals.'

'The badger it cannot be, because, being an unclean beast, its skin was unsuitable to be used about the tabernacle, and because it is not native of the East. Nor could it have been a species of the antelope' (Kitto's 'Biblical Cyclopaedia'). Rather some kind of marine animal is meant. Many have supposed the seal, phoca; but as it is now ascertained that it is not found in the Red Sea, others have pitched upon the sea-cow (Dolphin), the Dugong (Professor Owen), called by Ehrenberg-Halicora Hemprichii.

'The Arabs around the convent of Catherine called it Tun; but they could give no further account of it than that it is a large fish, and is eaten. It is a species of Halicore. The skin is clumsy and coarse, and might answer very well for the external covering of the tabernacle, which was constructed at mount Sinai. Its skin is used for sandals by the Bedouin Arabs in the present day, though is would seem hardly a fitting material for the ornamental sandals belonging to the costly attire of high-born dames in Palestine, described by the prophet Ezekiel, Ezekiel 16:10 (Robinson's 'Biblical Researches,' vol. 1:, p. 171).

But this doubt of Robinson's has been found to be groundless; because Keil has shown that 'the upper skin differs from the under, the former being larger, thicker, and coarser than the latter, which is only two lines in thickness, and very tough: so that the skin would be well adapted either for the thick covering of tents or for the finer kinds of ornamental sandals.' It may be mentioned that the Jewish version in English, by Dr. Benisch, leaves the word untranslated, having tachash-skins.

Shittim wood, х `ªtseey (H6086) shiTiym (H7848)] - plural of Shittah; acacia wood; Mimosa Nilotica (Linnaeus); Acacia vera, or Arabica (Sprengel); Al Sunt of the Arabs (acacia gummifera of botanists-from which the gum-Arabic is obtained). Stanley says, 'The wild acacia under this Arabic name everywhere represents the "Seneh" or "Senna" of the Burning Bush. A slightly different form of the tree, equally common under the name of "Tulh" or "Seyal," is the ancient "Shittah," or, as more usually expressed in the plural form, Shittim (from the tangled thickets into which its stem expands) of which the tabernacle was made-an incidental proof, it may be observed, of the antiquity of that erection, inasmuch as the acacia, though the chief growth of the desert, is very rare in Palestine' (see the note at Exodus 3:2). Acacias are still not uncommon in the neighbourhood, rising to a height of from 20 to 25 feet. The wood is thorny; very hard, very durable and hence, the Septuagint renders the words as: zula aseepta, wood not liable to rot], and when old has the colour of ebony.