badger Summary and Overview

this word is found in Ex. 25:5; 26:14; 35:7, 23; 36:19; 39:34; Num. 4:6, etc. The tabernacle was covered with badgers' skins; the shoes of women were also made of them (Ezek. 16:10). Our translators seem to have been misled by the similarity in sound of the Hebrew "tachash" and the Latin "taxus", "a badger." The revisers have correctly substituted "seal skins." The Arabs of the Sinaitic peninsula apply the name "tucash" to the seals and dugongs which are common in the Red Sea, and the skins of which are largely used as leather and for sandals. Though the badger is common in Israel, and might occur in the wilderness, its small hide would have been useless as a tent covering. The dugong, very plentiful in the shallow waters on the shores of the Red Sea, is a marine animal from 12 to 30 feet long, something between a whale and a seal, never leaving the water, but very easily caught. It grazes on seaweed, and is known by naturalists as Halicore tabernaculi.

(Exodus 26:14). Badger skins were the outer covering of the tabernacle, in the wilderness; and of the ark, the table, the candlestick, the golden altar, and altar of burnt offering (Numbers 4:6-14). In Ezekiel 16:10 Jehovah alludes to this, under the image of the shoes made of badger skins for delicate and beautiful women; "I shod thee with badger skin." This was the material of the shoes worn by Hebrew on festival days. Weighty authorities render Hebrew tachash a "seal," not a "badger"; seals were numerous on the shores of the Sinaitic peninsula. Others say it is the halicore, a Red Sea fish, which still is used by the Arabs to make soles for shoes and like purposes; called dahash, like tachash. Others think it is the stag goat, of the antelope kind, called thacasse, related perhaps to tachash, to be seen on Egyptian monuments. A great objection to the badger is, it is not found in Bible lands, Syria, Arabia, or Egypt, and certainly not in sufficient quantities for the Israelites' purpose. The objection to the halicore is Leviticus 11:10; "all that have not fins and scales in the seas." But that prohibition refers only to using them as food; moreover, the tachash probably includes marine animals in general, their skins made into "leather" were well fitted to protect against the weather. Josephus makes the color sky blue (Ant. 3:6, section 4).