tortoise Summary and Overview

(Heb. tsabh). Ranked among the unclean animals (Lev. 11:29). Land tortoises are common in Syria. The LXX. renders the word by "land crocodile." The word, however, more probably denotes a lizard, called by the modern Arabs "dhabb".

(Heb. tsab). The tsab occurs only in #Le 11:29| as the name of some unclean animal. The Hebrew word may be identified with the kindred Arabic dhab, "a large kind of lizard," which appears to be the Psommosaurus scincus of Cuvier.

TOR'TOISE . This translation, Lev 11:29, is doubtful. Bochart's view has most adherents - that the creature intended was the dhabb of the Arabs, a slow-moving lizard, sometimes attaining the length of 2 feet, and found in the Syrian and Arabian wilderness. The Septuagint has, in place of "tortoise," "land-crocodile," but this reptile seems to be meant by the "chameleon" of the next verse. A large land-tortoise is found in all these regions, and, like the dhabb is eaten by the natives. There is also in Palestine a water-tortoise.

tsab. From tsaabab "to move slowly" (Leviticus 11:29); rather "the great lizard." Septuagint translated "the land crocodile": mentioned by Herodotus iv. 192; the varan, of the desert; it subsists on beetles, etc.; of a dusky yellow color, with dark green spots and yellow claws; the waran el hard, the Psammosaurus scincus or Monitor terrestris of Cuvier. Arabic dhab, a lizard often two feet long, abounding in Egypt and Syria. Tristram makes it the Uromastix spinipes (Nat. Hist., 255). Its flesh dried was used as a charm or medicine; the Arabs made broth of its flesh (Hasselquist, 220); the Syrians ate its flesh (Jerome adv. Jovin. ii. 7, 334). Several kinds of tortoise (marsh tortoises, etc.) abound in Israel. Some have even conjectured that "the tortoise" is meant by the word translated "bittern" in the prophecies of Isaiah and Zephaniah. (See BITTERN.)