UNICORN WAS on the ARK!

There is so much misinformation about the word UNICORN, which the AV uses nine times in the OT, translating it from the Hebrew word REEM. Modern bibles mostly translate this word as WILD OX or something of that nature.

The AV, however, renders the Hebrew word REEM as UNICORN, and UNICORN as employed by the AV, Tyndale, Geneva Bible, Matthew, Coverdale, et cetera, is NOT a mythical creature, nor did the AV translators or anybody else in that age think of it as such.

Observe -In Isaiah 34:7 in the 1611 edition the AV translators wrote two slashes || in front of the word UNICORN. Those slashes are known as a siglum, and the 1611 edition makes use of sigla throughout. In the adjacent margin - directly across from this siglum - the AV translators repeat that same siglum, i.e., they write the same two slashes ||, and then immediately after that they write -

"or Rhinocerots"

which was the term for the RHINOCEROS in 1611, derived from the Latin UNICORNIS and the Greek MONOKEROS, both meaning ONE-HORNED, and both referring to the RHINOCEROS type creature.

In other words, the AV translators themselves stated that they were equating UNICORN with RHINOCEROS. They employed UNICORN as a specific type of RHINOCEROS to further indicate that they were referring to a RHINO with a SINGLE HORN, for the SINGLE HORN has spiritual significance in the Bible. That is how everyone understood the passage until scholars arose who can't speak Latin and who know absolutely nothing about the subject of the Bible, all their pretensions notwithstanding.

Now since the AV translators made it plain that they were talking about the RHINOCEROS - for it comes from their own lips - only a complete ignoramus would assert that they were referring to a mythical creature.

Further still, the AV translators were masters of the patristic literature, including Jerome, who in the 4th century translated the Hebrew word REEM as RHINOCEROTIS five times and UNICORNIS four times. Did you get that? Jerome translated this SAME Hebrew word as RHINOCEROTIS and UNICORNIS. Jerome studied Hebrew for years under the Jews before he began his translation of the OT, thus it is from the Jews that Jerome derived his definitions.

As just stated, the AV translators were EMINENTLY familiar with all of this, as well as statements by others, such as Tertullian in ca 200 who also mentions the RHINOCEROS in the OT passage which the AV translates as UNICORN.

Finally, the UNICORN symbolizes the strength of Israel. A wild ox simply doesn't fill the bill. For example, observe this rhetorical question -

Job 39:9-10 Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? 10 Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?

 This passage clearly indicates that the animal in question is untamable. Modern bibles such as the NKJ, NASB, NIV, et cetera, use the term WILD OX here, which once again demonstrates the incompetence of modern translators. In fact, wild oxen are tamed every day. Wild oxen do not symbolize anything but servitude.

The UNICORN symbolizes the strength of Israel, and this is how the word is employed in this passage and the others.

Indeed, notice what the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge says about this matter -

"The REEM, most probably denotes the RHINOCEROS, so called from the horn on its nose. In size he is only exceeded by the elephant; and in strength and power inferior to none. He is at least twelve feet in length, from the snout to the tail; six or seven feet in height; and the circumference of the body is nearly equal to his length. He is particularly distinguished from all other animals by the remarkable and offensive weapon he carries on his nose; which is very hard horn, solid throughout, directed forward."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown concurs -

"Israel is not as they were at the Exodus, a horde of poor, feeble, spiritless people, but powerful and invincible as a REEM --THAT IS, A RHINOCEROS."

Only in the past hundred years or so, when scholars no longer understand Latin and the cognitive relationship of Latin and Greek to English, as well as a virtual bankruptcy of knowledge of the patristic and rabbinic literature, not to mention that their Hebrew grammars are all based on theories which postulate that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch, that Daniel wasn't written until the Maccabean period, ad nauseam, have scholars substituted the utterly absurd WILD OX for the glorious UNICORN, which alone symbolizes the strength of Israel in these contexts.

In summary, the UNICORN is NOT a mythical creature. The UNICORN from the earliest times has meant ONE-HORNED and has ALWAYS referred to the Rhinoceros.

As to the SINGLE HORN, it should be known that the Indian Rhinoceros, whose scientific appellation is RHINOCEROS UNICORNIS, is a Rhino with a single horn, is as big as the African Rhino, and is the only Rhino whose skin is so thick that its folds make it appear armor-plated, and whose territory was vastly more expanded in ancient times than it is today. And it's even called a unicorn today!