Elephant in Wikipedia

Elephant. - We learn from Assyrian inscriptions that before the Hebrews settled in Syria, there existed elephants in that country, and Tiglath-Pileser I tells us about his exploits in elephant hunting. We do not read, however, of elephants in the Bible until the Machabean times. True, III Kings speaks of ivory, or "elephants' teeth", as the Hebrew text puts it, yet not as indigenous, but as imported from Ophir. In the post-exilian times, especially in the books of the Machabees, elephants are frequently mentioned; they were an important element in the armies of the Seleucides. These animals were imported either from India or from Africa.