Shittah
Fausset's Bible Dictionary [1]
The acacia, perhaps the Seyal , or Νilotica or Αrabica . The ark, the staves, the shewbread table and staves, and the altars of burnt offering and incense, were made of Shittah (Exodus 25; 26; 36-38). Isaiah foretells ( Isaiah 41:19) God's planting it in the wilderness. The Egyptian Saut . Many acacia trees grow on Sinai; they grow to the size of a mulberry tree. It was probably in the shittah or acacia that the flame appeared which did not burn the bush (Exodus 3). The gum arabic is obtained by incisions in the bark. The shittah boards of the tabernacle, ten cubits long and one and a half broad, were not necessarily one piece but formed of pieces joined together. The acacia is not that so-called in England, the Robinia Pseudo Acacia , a N. American plant; but of the order Leguminosae , Μimoseae . Hard and durable wood. If the ark had been made in Palestine, oak or cedar would have been its material; its being said to be made of shittah, the wood of the wilderness, is an undesigned propriety and mark of truth ( Exodus 25:10).
King James Dictionary [2]
SHIT'TAH, n. In Scripture, a sort of precious wood of which the tables, altars and
Webster's Dictionary [3]
(n.) Alt. of Shittah tree
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature [4]
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [5]
( שַׁטָּה ; plur..] שַׁטַּי ) means in Chaldee a Line Or Series. Thus, the passage in Isaiah 30:8, חקה על ספר , "Noted in a book," is rendered by the Targum, ועל שטיןדספר רשו , "Register it on the lines of the book." The passage in the Song of Solomon 5:13, "His cheeks are like beds of balsam," is rendered] בעשר שטיןדמיןלשטי גנת בסמא כתיב , i.e. "were written (viz. the two tables of stone which he gave to his people) in ten rows, resembling the rows or beds in the garden of balsam." The Masorites denote with Shittah a series or catalog of words — a register of things of the same import, as a number of verses, pairs, words, which are alike either in vowel oints or letters. Thus, they noted down a list of pairs of words which occur once, but the first of which commences with A Lamed, viz., לאחזת עול ( Genesis 17:8), באהלו לאשר ( Exodus 16:16); or they give us a list of thirty-eight words which respectively have in one instance only the accent on the penultima, as רבה ( Genesis 18:20), יצחק ( Genesis 21:6), וספר ( Leviticus 15:13), etc.; or they give a list of words which, on the contrary, occur only once with the accent on the ultima, as הבה ( Genesis 29:21), מתה ( Genesis 30:1), ירא ( Genesis 41:33), etc. See Buxtorf, Tiberias, seu Comnmentarius Massoreticus, p. 273; Levita, Massoreth ha-Massoreth (ed. Ginsburg), p. 205, 210; Frensdorff, Massora Magna, p. 381 sq.; id. Ochla-we-Ochla, § 20. p. 36; § 372, p. 61, 171; § 373, p. 61, 172. (B.P.)
