Rendering in the Authorized Version of the Hebrew
or
, following the
Septuagint and the Vulgate. Aquila and Saadia, on Job xxxix. 9, read
"rhinoceros"; Bochart ("Hierozoicon") and others, "oryx," or "white
antelope"; Revised Version, "wild ox" (margin, "ox-antelope"). The allusions
to the "re'em" as a wild, untamable animal of great strength and agility,
with mighty horns (Job xxxix. 9-12; Ps. xxii. 21, xxix. 6; Num. xxiii. 22,
xxiv. 8; Deut. xxxiii. 17; comp. Ps. xcii. 11), best fit the aurochs (Bos
primigenius). This view is supported by the Assyrian "rimu," which is
often used as a metaphor of strength, and is depicted as a powerful, fierce,
wild, or mountain bull with large horns. The term evidently denotes from its
connection some animal of the bovine or antelope class, perhaps the oryx (so
LXX.). The oryx, as well as the wild bull and ox, is common in Palestine and
Syria; and aurochs' teeth were found by Tristram on the flooring of an
ancient cave in the Lebanon.
The Talmud has for "re'em"
or
, which etymologically
recalls the Arabic "ghazal" (= "gazel"), but is said to be the name of an
animal of such size that it could not enter the ark of Noah, but had to be
fastened thereto by its horn (Zeb. 113b; comp. B. B. 74b; Shab. 107b; Yalkut
Shim'oni, ii. 97d, where it is said that the re'em touches the clouds). If
the Talmud intended the urzila for the unicorn,
it can not be identical with the one-horned ox which Adam is said to have
offered as sacrifice (Hul. 60a and parallels), because the urzila is classed
among the animals of the field that may not be offered for that purpose. The
Tosefta on the passage in Zebahim explains the urzila as the buffalo.
Again, in Hul. 59b is mentioned an animal called
(perhaps shortened
from "monoceros" or "rhinoceros"), which, "though it has only one horn, is
allowed as food," and is then explained as the "hart of the forest 'Ilai" (;
comp. B. B. 16b). The Talmud apparently thinks here of the antelope oryx,
the mode of depicting which on Persian monuments gave rise to the belief by
the ancients (comp. Pliny, "Historia Naturalis," viii. 21, 30) in the
existence of the unicorn (comp. "S. B. O. T.,"
Psalms [Eng. transl.], p. 173). In Arabic likewise "re'em" is applied to the
leucoryx. The aurochs is mentioned in the Talmud under the name
(= "ox of the
plain"), in explanation of
, the rendering of
(Deut. xiv. 5) by the
Targum, which Rashi (Hul. 80a) explains as the "ox of the Lebanon." It is
classed among cattle (Kil. viii. 6), and is caught with slings (B. K. 117a;
comp. Isa. li. 20). Bibliography:Tristram,
Nat. Hist. p.
146; Lewysohn,
Z. T. pp.
114, 126, 149; C.Cohen,
Gesch. des Einhorns, Berlin,
1896.E.G
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