The Biblical Oryx—A New Name for an Ancient Animal - The BAS Library
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Home > Magazines > BAR > September/October 1984

The Biblical Oryx—A New Name for an Ancient Animal

Soon it will again roam the wilderness of the Holy Land as it roams the pages of the Bible

By Bill Clark

In the King James Version of the Bible, it’s translated unicorn. But that’s not what re’em means. Re’em is the Hebrew name for Oryx leucoryx or oryx for short. This animal is also called the Arabian oryx, the White oryx and the Beatrix oryx because it used to be found in the Arabian desert and it’s white and beautiful. But in Israel, it is now being called the Biblical oryx—with good reason. Oryx leucoryx was once a lord of the entire Middle East. Its domain embraced most of the Land of Israel. It also inhabited the hostile deserts of […]

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Footnotes

1.

“The unicorn through its lack of temperance, and because it does not know how to control itself for the delight that it has for young maidens, forgets in ferocity and wildness; and laying wide all fear it goes up to the seated maiden and goes to sleep in her lap, and in this way the hunters take it.” (Edward MacCurdy (ed.), The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci [Braziller: New York, 1958)], p. 1079).

2.

The Revised Standard Version, the New English Bible, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jewish Publication Society Bible and others.