Exo 25:5 | KD | STEP | מאדּמים אלים ערת rams’ skins reddened, i.e., dyed red. תּחשׁ is either the seal, phoca, or else, as this is not known to exist in the Arabian Gulf, the φῶκος = φώκαινα of the ancients, as Knobel supposes, or κῆτος θαλάσσιον ὅμοιον δελφῖνι, the sea-cow ( Manati, Halicora ), which is found in the Red Sea, and has a skin that is admirably adapted for sandals. Hesychius supposes it to have been the latter, which is probably the same as the large fish Tûn or Atûm , that is caught in the Red Sea, and belongs to the same species as the Halicora (Robinson, Pal. i. p. 170); as its skin is also used by the Bedouin Arabs for making sandals ( Burckhardt , Syr. p. 861). In the Manati the upper skin differs from the under; the former being larger, thicker, and coarser than the latter, which is only two lines in thickness and very tough, so that the skin would be well adapted either for the thick covering of tents or for the finer kinds of ornamental sandals ( ). שׁטּים עצי acacia-wood. שׁטּה for שׁנטה, the true acacia ( acacia vera ), which grows in Egypt and on the Arabian peninsula into a tree of the size of a nut-tree, or even larger; the only tree in Arabia deserta from which planks could be cut, and the wood of which is very light and yet very durable.

‏ Exodus 25:5

Exo 25:5 מאדּמים אלים ערת rams’ skins reddened, i.e., dyed red. תּחשׁ is either the seal, phoca, or else, as this is not known to exist in the Arabian Gulf, the φῶκος = φώκαινα of the ancients, as Knobel supposes, or κῆτος θαλάσσιον ὅμοιον δελφῖνι, the sea-cow (Manati, Halicora), which is found in the Red Sea, and has a skin that is admirably adapted for sandals. Hesychius supposes it to have been the latter, which is probably the same as the large fish Tûn or Atûm, that is caught in the Red Sea, and belongs to the same species as the Halicora (Robinson, Pal. i. p. 170); as its skin is also used by the Bedouin Arabs for making sandals (Burckhardt, Syr. p. 861). In the Manati the upper skin differs from the under; the former being larger, thicker, and coarser than the latter, which is only two lines in thickness and very tough, so that the skin would be well adapted either for the thick covering of tents or for the finer kinds of ornamental sandals (Eze 16:10). שׁטּים עצי acacia-wood. שׁטּה for שׁנטה, the true acacia (acacia vera), which grows in Egypt and on the Arabian peninsula into a tree of the size of a nut-tree, or even larger; ^{▼▼See Abdallatif's Merkwürdigkeiten Aegyptens, and Rosenmüller, Althk. iv. i. pp. 278-9. This genuine acacia, Sont, must not be confounded, according to Robinson (Pal. 2, 350), with the Acacia gumnifera (Talh). Seetzen also makes a distinction between the Thollhh, the Szont of the Egyptians, and the Szeiâl, and between an acacia which produces gum and one which does not; but he also observes that the same tree is called both Thollhh and Szeiâl in different places. He then goes on to say that he did not find a single tree large enough to furnish planks of ten cubits in length and one and a half in breadth for the construction of the ark (he means, of the tabernacle), and he therefore conjectures that the Israelites may have gone to Egypt for the materials with which to build the tabernacle. But he has overlooked the fact, that it is not stated in the text of the Bible that the boards of the tabernacle, which were a cubit and a half in breadth, were cut from one plank of the breadth named; and also that the trees in the valleys of the peninsula of Sinai are being more and more sacrificed to the charcoal trade of the Bedouin Arabs (see p. 366), and therefore that no conclusion can be drawn from the present condition of the trees as to what they were in the far distant antiquity.} the only tree in Arabia deserta from which planks could be cut, and the wood of which is very light and yet very durable.