Deuteronomy 14:5

The hart, the roebuck, and the fallow deer,.... All of the deer kind, and very agreeable food; harts were very common in the land of Canaan and parts adjacent; Aelianus says (u) harts are bred in the

The hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois.

Deuteronomy 14:5 The hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois.Ver. 5. The hart and the roebuck.] These were dainties fit for a king. Rice and mutton is the cheer wherewith the great Turk entertaineth foreign ambassadors, and that so plainly and sparingly dressed, as if they would give check to our gormandise and excess. And the wild ox.] Pliny saith, that there are wild creatures answerable to all that are tame: like as others say there is no living creature on earth, but there are fishes of the same sort found in the sea, and those all harmless. Plin., lib. viii. cap. 53.

(5) The wild goat.—In German the “Steinbock” is given as the equivalent for this creature. The pygarg (dîshon) is sometimes taken to be the buffalo. If all these creatures were then to be found in Palestine, there must have been far more uncleared land than there has been for many centuries past.

Verse 5. The hart] איל aiyal, the deer, according to Dr. Shaw: See Clarke on Deuteronomy 12:15. The roebuck] צבי tsebi, generally supposed to be the antelope, belonging to the fifth order Pecora, genus MAMMALIA, and species 38. It has round twisted spiral horns, hairy tufts on the knees, browses on tender shoots, lives in hilly countries, is fond of climbing rocks, and is remarkable for its beautiful black eyes. The flesh is good and well flavoured. The fallow deer] יחמור yachmur, from חמר chamar, to be troubled, disturbed, disordered: this is supposed to mean, not the fallow deer, but the bubalus or buffalo, which is represented by Dr. Shaw, and other travellers and naturalists, as a sullen, malevolent, and spiteful animal, capricious, ferocious, and every way brutal. According to the Linnaean classification, the buffalo belongs to the fifth order Pecora, genus MAMMALIA, species bos. According to 1Kg 4:23, this was one of the animals which was daily served up at the table of Solomon. Though the flesh of the buffalo is not considered very delicious, yet in the countries where it abounds it is eaten as frequently by all classes of persons as the ox is in England. The yachmur is not mentioned in the parallel place, Leviticus 11:1-47. The wild goat] אקו akko. It is not easy to tell what creature is intended by the akko. Dr. Shaw supposed it to be a kind of very timorous goat, known in the East by the name fishtall and serwee, and bearing a resemblance both to the goat and the stag, whence the propriety of the name given it by the Septuagint and Vulgate, tragelaphus, the goat-stag; probably the rupicapra or rock-goat. The word is found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The pygarg] דישן dishon. As this word is nowhere else used, we cannot tell what animal is meant by it. The word pygarg πυγαργος, literally signifies white buttocks, and is applied to a kind of eagle with a white tail; but here it evidently means a quadruped. It was probably some kind of goat, common and well known in Judea. The wild ox] תאו teo. This is supposed to be the oryx of the Greeks, which is a species of large stag. It may be the same with the bekker el wash, described by Dr. Shaw as "a species of the deer kind, whose horns are exactly in the fashion of our stag, but whose size is only between the red and fallow deer." In Isaiah 51:20 a creature of the name of to is mentioned, which we translate wild bull; it may be the same creature intended above, with the interchange of the two last letters. The chamois] זמר zemer. This was probably a species of goat or deer, but of what kind we know not: that it cannot mean the chamois is evident from this circumstance, "that the chamois inhabits only the regions of snow and ice, and cannot bear the heat." - Buffon.

5. Seven varieties of game; LXX B gives only five: hart, gazelle, roebuck, wild-ox and giraffe (?); codd. AF, etc. add after gazelle, buffalo and tragelaphos. It may not be unnecessary to remark that neither to the nomads nor to the fellaḥ ?ξn is hunting sport; it is, especially to the former, a hard and hungry search for food. ‘The nomad is not a hunter’ (Doughty, i. 157). The hunters of Arabia are the Sleyb, wandering gypsies without cattle and camels: according to Burckhardt (p. 12) they live on dried gazelle-flesh. Besides the varieties of game given here as edible, the ancient Arabs relished also the flesh of the wild-ass (Georg Jacob, op. cit. 115). hart and gazelle] ’Ayyal, ṣ ?ebi: see on Deuteronomy 12:22; cp. Deuteronomy 12:15, Deuteronomy 15:22; hart probably fallow deer, cervus dama; gazelle, gazella dorcas. roebuck] Yaḥ ?mϋr also Deuteronomy 1 Kings 4:23 (Deuteronomy 5:3) A.V. fallow-deer. Yakhmϋr is the name still given to a deer found on Mt Carmel (Conder, Tent Work, i. 173) and identified as the roebuck, cervus capreolus; called in Gilead khamϋr (Post, PEFQ, 1890, 171 f.; Conder, id. 173); also seen on Lebanon (Tr. 4). Found throughout Europe it does not range farther S. than Palestine. As roebuck is the name of the male, roedeer is perhaps the better rendering. wild goat] ’Aḳ ?ḳ ?o only here, LXX AF τραγέλαφος, Targ. ya‘al, ibex such as about Engedi, 1 Samuel 24:2. With ’aḳ ?ḳ ?o as if for ’anḳ ?o cp. Ar. ’anaḳ ? (= long-necked) goat. pygarg] As LXX πύγαργος ‘white-rump.’ The Heb. dξshon (as if from Heb. dash = tread, leap) is rather antelope: the large white addax (Tr. 5). antelope] te‘o only here and Isaiah 51:20, LXX ὄρυξ, A.V. wild-ox. Tristram (p. 5) takes the name as generic and suggests that it covers both the antilope bubalis, which, he says, is called ‘wild-cow’ in Moab and Gilead, and a leucoryx ‘the Oryx or white antelope,’ to which the Arabs of Arabia give the name of ‘wild-ox’ (G. Jacob, op. cit. 117, citing from Ar. poets descriptions of it as shining like a white-washed house or as if with a white tunic); Post (Hastings’ D.B. ‘Ox’) proposes the oryx beatrix; Doughty (1. 328) takes the woṭ ?hŷ ?ḥ ?ξ of central Arabia, ‘an antelope beatrix,’ to be the O.T. re’em or wild-ox. R.V. antelope and A.V. wild-ox are thus probably both correct, the former giving the genus of the animal the latter its popular name among the Hebrews and the Arabs. With regard to the Heb. name te’o or the’o I notice that Lane gives the Ar. Sha’ (sh and the soft th correspond) as applied to the wild-bull or wild-cow. chamois] Certainly not this! This animal is European and is not found so far S. as Palestine. Heb. zemer, Targ. diṣ ?a, wild-goat. In the Mts of Yemen the wild maned sheep, ovis tragelaphus, was anciently numerous (G. Jacob, p. 21). Probably mountain-goat or -sheep.

5. The hart — The ordinary deer. The roebuck should be translated the gazelle. The pygarg — A species of antelope. A kind of deer called yahmar is found on Carmel. Lieutenant Conder says it resembles the English roebuck.