“And the unicorns shall come down with them …”
(Deut. 33:17a, KJV)
We are currently engaged with Isa. 34:6-7: “For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. The wild oxen shall come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust saturated with fatness.”
In the previous teaching, we explained the lovely meaning of bulls in this verse. It is however interesting that the verse begins with a reference to oxen.
For the South African reader, the buffalo is a very well-known wild animal of the species named Syncerus caffer. The American species is known as the bison, and we also know of the tame water buffalo in Asia. On the walls of many caves worldwide these different species were painted, and presented as mythical animals with supernatural connotations.
In Hebrew, the word is re’êm/re’êym/rêym/rêm, and the BDB defines it as “probably the great aurochs or wild bulls which are now extinct. The exact meaning is not known.” The surprise is that the traditional and conservative KJV (along with various classic translations, like the Bishops Bible, Douay-Rheims Bible, Darby Bible, Geneva Bible [of Martin Luther], Israeli Authorised Version, Jubilee Bible, Third Millennium Bible, Tyndale Bible and Webster Bible) translate it as the unicorn: “And the unicorns shall come down with them …”
If you look at the word unicorn in the Webster’s New World Dictionary, it is clearly defined as follows: “Unicorn – A mythical horselike animal with a single horn growing from its forehead.” This is also how we have come to know the unicorn in films, cartoons, paintings, etc., but alas not in photographs, as there are no visual records of an actual unicorn – it is an animal of the imagination.
Now the question is – is the Bible really referring to an animal that does not exist in reality? If so, it joins the pantheon of animals mentioned in the Bible that do not really exist:
- the dragon – Rev. 12 and other instances in this apocalyptic book; there is even a flying dragon in Isa. 14:29
- the satyr (Isa. 13:21 KJV)
- the basilisk or cockatrice (Isa. 59:5, KJV), a snake-like being that hatches from chicken eggs. According to Jer. 8:17 (BB) they can bite you.
- the behemoth (Job 40:15, KJV). The Young Earth Creationists (like Henry M. Morris, in his book The Genesis Flood) for instance claim that it is an example of the extinct dinosaurs, but this is doubted in scientific circles.
- the leviathan is referred to by its Hebrew name in Isa. 27:1. In Ps. 74:14 Asaph notes: “You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces, andgave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.” This sounds strange when considering the fact that Ps. 104:25-26 has a conflicting message about this large, monstrous animal: “This great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great.” If the latter is used as measure, it definitely excludes the crocodile, as he does not swim in the deep ocean. If we look at the apocryphal books, we find the following in 1 Enoch 60:7-8: “And on that day two monsters will be separated from one another, a female monster whose name is Leviathan, to dwell in the depths of the sea, above the springs of the waters. And the name of the male is Behemoth who occupies with his breast an immense desert named Dendayn on the east of the Garden where the chosen and the righteous dwell.” (Naturally we need to carefully consider everything we read in this book, as it is not canonical.)
The appearance of these animals is problematic for the modern reader, as only dubious records exist about their possible existence. For now, we focus only on the unicorn, as it is concerned with the question from Isa. 34:7 we are trying to answer.
If one looks at the 1828 Noah Webster’s Dictionary, the forefather of the later Webster’s, much later, the following is noted under the heading unicorn: “Unicorn – An animal with one horn; the monoceros. This name is often applied to the rhinoceros.” It does not mention anything about a horse, or about the fact that it is a fictitious or mythical animal. But if you look at the word rhinoceros in this same dictionary, you find: “Rhinoceros – A genus of quadrupeds of two species, one of which, the unicorn, has a single horn growing almost erect from the nose. This animal when full grown, is said to be 12 feet in length. There is another species with two horns, the bicornis. They are natives of Asia and Africa.” This was thus the understanding of the unicorn in the 1800s – a species of rhinoceros that only has one horn. Clearly the definition and naming of these animals has changed over the course of time. The scientific name of the Asian single-horn rhinoceros is Rhinoceros unicornis. And Diceros bicornis is the scientific name of the black rhinoceros. Eric Deinerstein’s 2003 book, titled The Return of the Unicorns: The Natural History and Conservation of the Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros explains this seeming mystery.
In Deut. 33:17a (KJV) it notes: “His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, his horns are like the horns of unicorns …” This is certainly not a unicorn, but an animal with two horns, as it is symbolically presented as the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the two descendants of Joseph (about whom the prophesy is concerned): “… his horns like the horns of the wild ox; together with them He shall push the peoples to the ends of the earth; they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh” (17b). In Hebrew, the word for unicorn ראם (r’em) is singular, but the word for horns קרני (qarney) is plural. There is one unicorn, but two horns, which clearly means that it cannot be a unicorn.
The buffalo too is presented in many translations (like the AMP) as a “wild ox.” Strictly speaking there is no such thing as a wild ox (not to be confused with a wildebeest). But oxen are tame, so what is actually intended here is a wild tame ox, which is something that one finds, but which is not considered a species! The term is thus an oxymoron, a stylistic figure in which conflicting elements are used in the same concept, like “a deafening silence”, or “an open secret”, or “bitter sweet.”
The Encyclopaedia Judaica strangely enough notes, under the term Buffalo, that it is the Hebrew word מְרִיא (meri), which should be translated as “fat cattle” or “fatling,” and they for instance offer 2 Sam. 6:13 and 1 Kings 1:9 & 19 as examples. If, according to this source in Ezek. 39:18, it makes note of “them fatlings of Bashan”, it means that the Biblical Bashan – in the Beteha valley at the foot of the Golan heights – is apparently known for its buffalo. Although presenting these two elements as the same thing may not sound right when you first think about it, it carries exciting and important symbolic associations that we’ll point out in the next teaching.
- Selah: What do you think is the symbolic association we’re hinting at?
- Read: 31-36
- Memorise: 35:18
