Tachash is an animal referred to in the Bible (Exodus 25:5, 26:14, 35:7, 35:23, 36:19 and 39:34; Numbers 4:6,8,10-12,14,25 and Ezekiel 16:10), the skin of which was used in the Tabernacle, as the outer covering of the tent of the Tabernacle

Tabernacle

The Tabernacle , according to the Hebrew Torah/Old Testament, was the portable dwelling place for the divine presence from the time of the Exodus from Egypt through the conquering of the land of Canaan. Built to specifications revealed by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, it accompanied the Israelites...

 and to wrap sacred objects used within the Tabernacle for transport.

What animal the word 'tachash' refers to is a matter of some debate. According to the Babylonian Talmud and Rashi

Rashi

Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...

's commentary, the tachash was a kosher, multi-colored, one horned desert animal which came into existence to be used to build the Tabernacle and ceased to exist afterward. The King James Version of the Bible

King James Version of the Bible

The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...

 translates the word tachash as badger. Another hypothesis is that the Hebrew term "orot t'chashim" refers to very fine dyed sheep or goat leather, hence the Jerusalem Bible translates the term as "fine leather". A currently popular hypothesis is that the term "tachash" means dugong

Dugong

The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's sea cow , was hunted to extinction in the 18th century...

. This translation is based upon the similarity between tachash and the Arabic word tukhas, which means dugong

Dugong

The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's sea cow , was hunted to extinction in the 18th century...

. In accordance with this hypothesis several translations, such as the Jewish Publication Society translation, render tachash as dolphin or sea cow. Others believe the tachash was related to the keresh, a creature most often identified with the giraffe

Giraffe

The giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all extant land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant...

, with a similar description mentioned in the Gemara

Gemara

The Gemara is the component of the Talmud comprising rabbinical analysis of and commentary on the Mishnah. After the Mishnah was published by Rabbi Judah the Prince The Gemara (also transliterated Gemora or, less commonly, Gemorra; from Aramaic גמרא gamar; literally, "[to] study" or "learning by...

.
It is not explicitly stated if the tachash was a mammal or not.

Tachash in the English Versions

The King James Version translates tachash as badger. John Grigg Hewlett, D.D. (1860) argued against the King James translation of Tachash as Badger for three reasons. 1. The badger is not found in Arabia. 2. It is an unclean animal. It would have violated the holiness code of Leviticus. 3. The translators of the Septuagint and the Vulgate translate tachash as blue or purple. Hewlett concluded that the word tachash refers only to the color of the skin not to the kind of skin.

In Literature

The poet Robert Graves

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...

 says in The White Goddess

The White Goddess

The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, based on earlier articles published in Wales magazine, corrected, revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1948, 1952 and 1961...

the covering skin of the Ark was "dolphin hide", but in I, Claudius

I, Claudius

I, Claudius is a novel by English writer Robert Graves, written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius. As such, it includes history of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in AD 41...

, has the narrator describe it as badger skin.

Unclean animals excluded

In light of Leviticus (11:4-8; 11:10-12; 20:25-26 -- most translations) the Tahash is excluded because it does not "chew the cud and divide the hoof"; the dugong, dolphin and porpoise are excluded because they do not have "fins and scales"; and the giraffe is probably excluded because its range was primarily Africa. This supports the hypothesis that "orot t'chashim" refers to very fine dyed sheep or goat leather as a parallel with "rams' skins dyed red." The New American Bible footnote to Exodus 25:5 (in part) says of Tahash: "The Greek and Latin versions took it for the color hyacinth." In this case, we have "a covering of rams' skins dyed red, and above that a covering of hyacinth skins": a covering of skins dyed red and an outer covering of skins dyed indigo.