Exodus 25:5
And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood,
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 {b} 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 {c}, 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 {d} observes, he thinks there some reason to conjecture, that the "shittim wood", whereof the several utensils of the tabernacle, &c. were made, was the wood of Acacia: and long ago it was the opinion of Cordus {e} 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 {f} 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" {g}: some places where it might grow in plenty seem to have had their names from it, see
{b} Ut supra. (Antiq. l. 3. c. 6. sect. 1.)
{c} Sepher Shorash. rad. jwv
{d} Travels, p. 144. Ed. 2.
{e} Apud Drus. Heb. Adag. Decur. 3. Adag. 4.
{f} Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 96.
{g} Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 2. p. 204.