Tortoise

Lev 11:29 . The Hebrew word rather denotes a species of lizard, so named in the original for its slowness of motion.\par

Tortoise. (Hebrew, tsab). The tsab occurs only in Lev 11:29, as the name of some unclean animal. The Hebrew word may be identified, with the kindred Arabic, dhab, "a large kind of lizard," which appears to be the Psommosaurus scincus of Cuvier.

tsab. From tsaabab "to move slowly" (Lev 11:29); rather "the great lizard." Septuagint translated "the land crocodile": mentioned by Herodotus iv. 192; the varan, of the desert; it subsists on beetles, etc.; of a dusky yellow color, with dark green spots and yellow claws; the waran el hard, the Psammosaurus scincus or Monitor terrestris of Cuvier. Arabic dhab, a lizard often two feet long, abounding in Egypt and Syria. Tristram makes it the Uromastix spinipes (Nat. Hist., 255). Its flesh dried was used as a charm or medicine; the Arabs made broth of its flesh (Hasselquist, 220); the Syrians ate its flesh (Jerome adv. Jovin. ii. 7, 334). Several kinds of tortoise (marsh tortoises, etc.) abound in Palestine. Some have even conjectured that "the tortoise" is meant by the word translated "bittern" in the prophecies of Isaiah and Zephaniah. (See BITTERN.)

tsab. One of the unclean animals. The Hebrew word is supposed to refer to a lizard, but to what species is not known: perhaps the dhab of the Arabs, a large lizard. The R.V. has ’great lizard.’ The tortoise, however, is common in Palestine. Lev 11:29.

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

Rendering in the Authorized Version of the Hebrew word "ẓab" (Lev. xi. 29; see Lizard). Some commentators assume "gallim" in Hos. xii. 12 to mean "tortoises," a view which has the support of the Septuagint, the Peshiṭta, and old Arabic versions. Two species of land tortoise, Testudo græca and Testudo leithii, and several of the aquatic tortoises have been found in Palestine. Of the latter the Emys caspica is the most numerous.

The Talmud uses "ẓab" and also "zabuni" to denote the toad (Ṭoh. v. i). In Ber. 33a it is said that the water-snake is the issue of the toad and the snake. The tortoise is assumed to be intended in and in Nid. 17a and Gen. R. lvii. 2.

Bibliography:

Tristram, Nat. Hist. p. 255;

Lewysohn, Z. T. p. 232.

TORTOISE (tsâb, Lev 11:29 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘great lizard’).—Several kinds of land and water tortoises are common in the Holy Land, but here the reference is probably to some kind of lizard. See Lizard.

E. W. G. Masterman.

tôr´tus, tôr´tis, tôr´tois. (the King James Version) (צב, cābh, the Revised Version (British and American) “great lizard”; compare the Arabic word, ḍabb, the thorny-tailed lizard): The word cābh occurs as the name of an animal only in Lev 11:29, being the third in the list of unclean “creeping things.”

The same word is found in Isa 66:20, translated “litters,” and in Num 7:3, where ‛eghlōth cābh is translated “covered wagons.” Gesenius derives the word, in all senses, from the root cābhabh, “to move gently,” “to flow”; compare Arabic dabba, “to flow.” The Arabic noun dabb is Uromastix spinipes, the Arabian thorny-tailed lizard. This lizard is about 18 inches long, its relatively smooth body being terminated with a great tail armed with rings of spiny scales. The Arabs have a familiar proverb, ’a‛ḳad min dhanab uḍ-ḍabb, “knottier than the tail of the ḍabb.” The Septuagint has for cābh in Lev 11:29 ὁ κροκόδειλος ὁ χερσαῖος, ho krokódeilos ho chersaı́os, the English equivalent of which, “land-crocodile,” is used by the Revised Version (British and American) for the fifth in the list of unclean “creeping things,” kō^aḥ, the King James Version “chameleon.”

The writer does not know what can have led the translators of the King James Version to use here the word “tortoise.” Assuming that the thorny-tailed lizard is meant, the “great lizard” of the Revised Version (British and American) may be considered to be a fair translation. See LIZARD.

See Turtle