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
) .