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Bible Dictionaries
Goat
American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
or A well-known animal, resembling the sheep, but covered with hair instead of wool. Large flocks of them were kept by the Jews, Genesis 27:9 1 Samuel 25:2 2 Chronicles 17:11 . They were regarded as clean for sacrifice, Exodus 12:5 Leviticus 3:12 Numbers 15:27; and their milk and the young kids were much used for food, Deuteronomy 14:4 Judges 6:19 Proverbs 27:27 Luke 15:29 . The common leather bottles were made of their skins. Several kinds of goats were kept in Palestine: one kind having long hair, like the Angora, and another, long and broad ears. This kind is probably referred to in Amos 3:12 , and is still the common goat of Palestine.
Herodotus says, that at Mendes, in Lower Egypt, both the male and female goat were worshipped. The heathen god Pan was represented with the face and thighs of a goat. The heathen paid divine honors also to real goats, as appears in the table of Isis. The abominations committed during the feast of these infamous deities cannot be told.
WILD GOATS are mentioned in 1 Samuel 24:2 Job 39:1 Psalm 104:18 . This is doubtless the Ibex, or mountain goat, a large and vigorous animal still found in the mountains in the peninsula of Sinai, and east and south of the Dead Sea.
These goats are very similar to the bouquetin or chamois of the Alps. They feed in flocks of a score or two, wit one of their number acting as a sentinel. At the slightest alarm, they are gone in an instant, darting fearlessly over the rocks, and falling on their horns from a great height without injury. Their horns are two or three feet long, and are sold by the Arabs for knife-handles, etc. For SCAPEGOAT , see EXPIATION .
These files are public domain and are a derivative of the topics are from American Tract Society Bible Dictionary published in 1859.
Rand, W. W. Entry for 'Goat'. American Tract Society Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ats/g/goat.html. 1859.
