< Previous | Contents | Next >
•BACKBITE In Psalm 15:3, the rendering of a word which means to run about tattling, calumniating; in Proverbs 25:23, secret talebearing or slandering; in Romans 1:30 and 2 Corinthians 12:20, evil-speaking, maliciously defaming the absent.
•BACKSLIDE to draw back or apostatize in matters of religion (Acts 21:21; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:1). This may be either partial (Proverbs 14:14) or complete (Hebrews 6:4-6; 10:38, 39). The apostasy may be both doctrinal and moral.
•BADGER this word is found in Exodus 25:5; 26:14; 35:7, 23; 36:19; 39:34; Numbers 4:6, etc. The tabernacle was covered with badgers’ skins; the shoes of women were also made of them (Ezekiel 16:10). Our translators seem to have been misled by the similarity in sound of the Hebrew tachash and the Latin taxus, “a badger.” The revisers have correctly substituted “seal skins.” The Arabs of the Sinaitic peninsula apply the name tucash to the seals and dugongs which are common in the Red Sea, and the skins of which are largely used as leather and for sandals. Though the badger is common in Palestine, and might occur in the wilderness, its small hide would have been useless as a tent covering. The dugong, very plentiful in the shallow waters on the shores of the Red Sea, is a marine animal from 12 to 30 feet long, something between a whale and a seal, never leaving the water, but very easily caught. It grazes on seaweed, and is known by naturalists as Halicore tabernaculi.
•BAG (1.) A pocket of a cone-like shape in which Naaman bound two pieces of silver for Gehazi (2 Kings 5:23). The same Hebrew word occurs elsewhere only in Isaiah 3:22, where it is rendered “crisping-pins,” but denotes the reticules (or as R.V., “satchels”) carried by Hebrew women.
(2.) Another word (kees) so rendered means a bag for carrying weights (Deuteronomy 25:13; Proverbs 16:11; Micah 6:11). It also denotes a purse (Proverbs 1:14) and a cup (23:31).