BADGER

תחש . This word in a plural form occurs, Exod. xxv, 5; xxvi, 14; xxxv, 7, 23; xxxvi, 19; xxxix, 34; Num. iv, 6, 8, 10–12, 14, 25; Ezek. xvi, 10; and is joined with ערת , skins used for the covering of the tabernacle in the wilderne . The Jewish interpreters are agreed as to its being some animal. Jarchi says it was a beast of many colours, which no more exists. Kimchi holds the same opinion. Aben Ezra thinks it some animal of the bovine kind, of whose skins shoes are made; alluding to Ezek. xvi, 10. Most modern interpreters have taken it to be the badger, and among these our English translators; but, in the first place, the badger is not an inhabitant of Arabia; and there is nothing in its skin peculiarly proper either for covering a tabernacle or making shoes. Hasæus, Michael is, and others, have laboured to prove that it is the mermaid, or homo mar in us , the trichekus of Linnæus. Faber, Dathe, and Rosenmuller, think that it is the seal, or sea calf, vitulus mar in us , the skin of which is both strong and pliable, and was accounted by the ancients as a most proper outer covering for tents, and was also made into shoes, as Rau has clearly shown. Niebuhr says, “A merchant of Abushahr called dahash that fish which the captains in English ve els call porpoise, and the Germans, sea hog. In my voyage from Maskat to Abushahr, I saw a prodigious quantity together near Ras Mu endom, that were all going the same way, and seemed to swim with great vehemence.” Bochart thinks that not an animal , but a colour , was intended, Exodus xxv, 5; so that the covering of the tabernacle was to be azure, or sky blue.