OKAPI AND “THAHASH” OF THE JEWS. 257 
xxxv. 7) by the name “ Thahash,” and that the Talmudisis 
most probably knew by tradition more or less about the qualities 
and conditions of the Okapi. 
It is said (Exodus xxv. 3-5): ‘‘ And this is the offering 
which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, 
and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ 
hair. And rams’ skins dyed red, and ‘Thahash’ skins, and 
shittim wood.” Luther and almost all Christian translators 
of the Bible translate the word ‘“‘ Thahash”’ by ‘‘ Badger” (see 
notes by Kitto to the ‘ Illustrated Family Bible’; see also James 
Inglis’s ‘ Bible Text Cyclopedia’ and John Endre’s ‘ Dictionary 
of the Holy Bible’); whereas most Hebrew translators left the 
word untranslated in due deference to the Talmudists, paying 
full attention to the doubts expressed by them in the Talmud. 
What really is to be understood by “‘ Thahash’”’? The renowned 
Bible commentator “‘ Rashi’’ has abstained in both verses in 
Exodus from giving any explanation whatever for the word; he 
merely quoted the Talmud : ‘‘ This animal existed only at that 
time,” or, to express the meaning of the Talmud more properly, 
*‘the animal existed only for that time and for this special pur- 
pose, namely, to be used as a cover at the Tabernacle.” 
We find the animal ‘‘ Thahash”’ mentioned once more by the 
prophet Ezekiel (xvi. 10), ‘‘ Vaenahlekh Thahash,” and there it 
is translated by the same commentator, ‘‘ Rashi,” by “ calzaite 
Taisson.’”’ But there is some reason for supposing that this 
translation does not originate from ‘‘ Rashi,’ but was adopted 
rom a marginal note, and it proceeds from the ‘‘ Goluth 
Tehudah”’ (Venetia, 1612), by the Italian scholar, Leon Mo- 
‘ena, who translated ‘‘ Thahash’”’ by “‘calzaited Tasso,” as 
‘Rashi’ never contradicts himself, and never deviates from an 
‘nterpretation once acknowledged by him as correct. Gesenius 
ives three translations for ‘‘Thahash”’: one as meaning to 
ienote the colour of the skin (as the Septuagint and Vulgate 
ake it in translating by “‘hyacinth colour’), being something 
‘ke the colour of a dolphin; the second translation denoting the 
uning and finishing of the skin, meaning ‘“‘ morocco-like”’; and 
> third translation, to which Gesenius is inclined to agree, is an 
imal named ‘‘ Thahash,” and to be translated by ‘‘ Badger”’ or 
Jolphin.” Inthe ‘Encyclopzdia Biblica,’ edited by Canon Cheyne 
Zool 4th ser. vol. XII.. July, 1908. x 
