Exodus 25:5

And rams' skins died red
Of these were made a covering for the tent or tabernacle:

and badgers' skins,
which were for the same use: the Septuagint version calls them hyacinth or blue skins; according to which, they seem to be the rams' skins died blue; and so Josephus ^F2 seems to have understood it; and it is much questionable whether the same creature is meant we call the badger, since that with the Israelites was an unclean creature; nor is its skin made use of for shoes, or well could be, as the skin of this creature is said to be, ( Ezekiel 16:10 ) . Jarchi says it was a kind of beast only at that time; and Aben Ezra says, it was known in those days but not now: and

shittim wood;
supposed by the Jewish writers, as Kimchi ^F3, and Ben Melech from him, to be the best and most excellent kind of cedar: Aben Ezra conjectures, and he delivers it but as a conjecture, that there might be near Mount Sinai a forest of "shittim" trees; and while the Israelites were there they cut them down for booths, which they might carry with them when they removed from thence; for, he says, Moses did not speak of the tabernacle till after the day of atonement: and since Acacia is by much the largest and the most common tree of the deserts of Arabia, as Dr. Shaw ^F4 observes, he thinks there some reason to conjecture, that the "shittim wood", whereof the several utensils of the tabernacle were made, was the wood of Acacia: and long ago it was the opinion of Cordus ^F5 that the "shittim wood" was the Acacia of Dioscorides; and it is the same with the Senton or Santon of the Arabians, which is the Egyptian thorn that grows in the wilderness, of which Herodotus ^F6 says, they cut wood of two cubits out of and make ships of burden of it: this is said to grow in the parts of Egypt at a distance from the sea; in the mountains of Sinai, at the Red sea, about Suez, in the barren wilderness; which circumstances seem to determine it to be the "shittim wood" ^F7: some places where it might grow in plenty seem to have had their names from it, see ( Numbers 25:1 ) ( 33:49 ) ( Joel 3:18 ) .