Bible Commentary

Numbers 23:22

The Pulpit Commentary on Numbers 23:22

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

God. אֵל, and also at the end of the next verse, and four times in the next chapter (, , , ). The use seems to be poetic, and no particular signification can be attached to it.

Brought them, or, perhaps, "is leading them." So the Septuagint: θεὸς ὁ ἐξαγαγὼν αὐτόν. Unicorn. Hebrew, רְאֵם. It is uniformly rendered μονοκέρως by the Septuagint, under the mistaken notion that the rhinoceros was intended.

It is evident, however, from and other passages that the teem had two hems, and that its horns were its most prominent feature. It would also appear from and that, while itself untameable, it was allied to species employed in husbandry.

The reem may therefore have been the aurochs or urus, now extinct, but which formerly had so large a range in the forests of the old world. There is some doubt, however, whether the urns existed in those days in Syria, and it may have been a wild buffalo, or some kindred animal of the bovine genus, whose size, fierceness, and length of horn made it a wonder and a fear.

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