BIBLE DICTIONARY + WORD STUDY
How to read this: there is rarely one magic “true meaning” hidden behind an English word. A lexicon records a word’s semantic range. The intended meaning is narrowed by grammar, sentence, author, historical usage and context.
HEBREW / ARAMAIC · H2169
ze.mer — mountain goat
1) mountain sheep, mountain goat, moufflon, gazelle, chamois (meaning uncertain) 1a) a certain animal allowed as food (specific species uncertain) 1b) perhaps an extinct animal, exact meaning unknown
1 tagged verse occurrence · see every occurrence →Only in Deut. 14:5 (Heb. zemer), an animal of the deer or gazelle species. It bears this Hebrew name from its leaping or springing. The animal intended is probably the wild sheep (Ovis tragelephus), which is still found in Sinai and in the broken ridges of Stony Arabia. The LXX. and Vulgate render the word by camelopardus, i.e., the giraffe; but this is an animal of Central Africa, and is not at all known in Syria.
Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897). Historical dictionary wording reflects the scholarship and language of its era.
