The Mystery Detail of the Tahash

From The Book of Numbers Blog - "The mystery detail: The most precious objects were wrapped up in dolphin skin. Two questions: 1) They were in the desert—where did they get dolphin skin? 2) Why wrap in dolphin skin, which is famously delicate?"

_____________________________________________________

Case in point - they [Hebrew] did not originate "in the desert", they came from Goshen (there has been a long debate over the precise location of the Egyptian Goshen – though it is often agreed to that it lies in the eastern part of the Nile Delta; perhaps Wadi Tumilat). – if you recall your own posts regarding Genesis and Exodus).

It does not seem a large leap of speculation to assume the Hebrew left with supplies and possessions - hides and skins would certainly be on the top ten list at that time. What you are reading as "dolphin" in the Tanakh is the Hebrew word tahash - which is unfortunately rendered as "badger" in the very inept King James Version (KJV babies have further wandered into "goat", "leather", "porpoise", and even "seal").

Except in Numbers 4:25 and Ezekiel 16:10, tahash is always governed by "or" (ot) which is "skins", and is therefore doubtless the name of an animal of some sorts. In Ezekiel 16:10, it is used in reference to the coverings of a woman's sandals – while its other occurrences all refer to the skins used in covering the tabernacle and its accessories.

As far as I know, the "badger" is rarely, if ever seen meandering through Sinai or Goshen even. Though "goat" is not impossible, it, like "badger" lacks cognate language support.Your TNK presents "dolphin" likely because (i) it is similar to a "dugong" [www.hsi.org.au] (Dugong dugong), but let's face it, how many common reader's would know what a dugong is exactly, and (ii) the Hebrew word tahash is quite cognate to the Arabic tuhas "dugong or dolphin".The bottle-nosed dolphin is found in the eastern Mediterranean, while the dugong is plentiful in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba [www.uaeinteract.com], as well as higher-level deep tributaries in in the northern Nile delta.

Unlike its cousin the bottle-nosed dolphin, the dugong's skin is very thick and durable. The skin of the dugong is still used to this day by Sinai Bedouin to make sandals [www.tesag.jcu.edu.au] - see page 33, subsection "Indigenous Use and Hunting".

If the dugong skin is tough enough to wear on your feet, rest assured Plotz, it is adequate as a covering for the tabernacle and its accessories.

.

Mystery solved ...