badgers skins Summary and Overview

BADGERS' SKINS . Ex 25:5; Eze 16:10. The true badger is rare, if known, in Arabia. It is believed that the skins meant were those of such marine animals as the dolphin, dugong, and seal. Dr. Robinson writes:"The superior" (of the convent of Mount Sinai) "procured for me a pair of the sandals usually worn by the Bedouin of the peninsula, made of the thick skin of a fish which is caught in the Red Sea. . . . The skin is clumsy and coarse, and might answer very well for the external covering of the tabernacle which was constructed at Sinai, but 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." Tristram adds: "As the tachack (badger) probably included also the seal, the sandals of the Jewish women may have been of that material, and so also may have been the covering of the tabernacle."