Pygarg

White-rump. This is properly the name of a species of eagle; but is applied, in Deu 14:5, to a quadruped, apparently a species of gazelle or antelope. So the Syriac version and Targums. Both the Arabic versions refer it to a species of mountain goat.\par

Pygarg. Pygarg, occurs, Deu 14:5, in the list of clean animals as the rendering of the Hebrew, dishon, the name apparently of one species of antelope, though it is by no means easy to identify it.

dishon. A clean animal (Deu 14:5). A generic name for the "white rumped (as pugarg means in Greek) antelope" of northern Africa and Syria. The Septuagint has translated the Hebrew by "pygarg"; living near the habitat of the pygarg they were likely to know. The mohr kind is best known, 2 ft. 8 in. high at the croup. The tail is long, with a long black tuft at the end; the whole part round the base of the tail is white, contrasting with the deep brown red of the flanks. Conder (Palestine Exploration, July, 1876) makes it the "gazelle".

Pygarg. Deu 14:5, A.V. Probably the antelope known as the addax.

dishon. This animal is only mentioned as clean for food. Deu 14:5. The word pygarg signifies, as some think, ’white on its hind quarters,’ which agrees with some of the antelopes; others think it is probably a gazelle, and others the addax, the Antilope addax.

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By: Emil G. Hirsch, I. M. Casanowicz

Clean animal mentioned in Deut. xiv. 5, following the Septuagint. The identity of the animal has not been established.

Bibliography:

Tristram, Natural History of the Bible, p. 126.

PYGARG (dîshôn).—A ‘clean’ animal, Deu 14:5 only. From its associates in the same verse it may be inferred that it was a deer of some kind. The LXX [Note: Septuagint.] tr. [Note: translate or translation.] is, on what grounds is not known, pygargos, i.e. ‘white-rumped’ (hence the Eng. ‘pygarg’). This description and a process of exclusion—the hart, roebuck, etc., all being otherwise accounted for—make it probable that the dîshôn was the addax (A. nasomaculatus), an antelope with a white tail and long, backward-curved, twisted horns. It is rare in Palestine to-day, but is known to the Bedouin.

E. W. G. Masterman.

pı̄´garg (דּישׁן, dı̄shōn; Septuagint πύγαργος, púgargos; compare proper nouns, “Dishon” and “Dishan” (Gen 36:21-30; 1Ch 1:38-42); according to BDB, Hommel, Saugethiere, derives דישׁן, from דּוּשׁ, dūsh, Arabic dâs, “to tread,” and compare Assyrian dashshu, “mountain-goat”): Dı̄shōn as the name of an animal occurs only in Deu 14:5 in the list of clean beasts. Both the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) have “pygarg,” which is not the recognized name of any animal whatever. The Septuagint pugargos (from πυγή, pugḗ, “rump,” and ἀργός, argós, “white”) was used by Herodotus (iv. 192) as the name of an antelope. A white rump is a very common feature of deer and antelopes, and is commonly explained as enabling the fleeing herd easily to keep in sight of its leaders. It has been used as a specific name of Cervus pygargus, the Tartarian roe, and Bubalis pygargus, a small South African antelope. The Arabic Bible has ri’m, “a white gazelle,” a kindred word to r^e’ēm, the King James Version “unicorn,” the Revised Version (British and American) “wild-ox.” Tristram, Tristram, Natural History of the Bible, considers dı̄shōn to be the addax, Antilope addax or Addax nasomaculatus. There is excellent reason, however, for believing that the range of this African antelope does not extend into Palestine, Sinai or Arabia. For a discussion of the animal names in Deu 14:4, Deu 14:5, see ZOOLOGY.

Pygarg.

Pygarg. The Hebrew term translated pygarg in (Deu 14:5) means "leaper." The RSV translates ibex and the NKJV has mountain goat or addax (margin). This animal probably was the white-rumped antelope. Also see Antelope, Goat.