How does Onkelos translate Tachash?

Summary: A strange word. Is it an animal or a color?

Post: In the description of donations to the Mishkan at the start of parashat Terumah, we have:

5. ram skins dyed red, tachash skins, and acacia wood;

ה. וְעֹרֹת אֵילִם מְאָדָּמִים וְעֹרֹת תְּחָשִׁים וַעֲצֵי שִׁטִּים:

Rashi explains (my translation):

techashim: A type of wild animals, and it only existed for that brief time, and it had many colors. Therefore the Targum is sasgona, that is rejoiced {she-sas} and glorified in its colors {gavnin}.

תחשים: מין חיה, ולא היתה אלא לשעה והרבה גוונים היו לה, לכך מתרגם ססגונא, ששש ומתפאר בגוונין שלו:

The Onkelos inside:

כה,ה וְעֹרֹת אֵילִם מְאָדָּמִים וְעֹרֹת תְּחָשִׁים, וַעֲצֵי שִׁטִּים.

וּמַשְׁכֵּי דְּדִכְרֵי מְסֻמְּקֵי וּמַשְׁכֵּי סָסְגוֹנָא, וְאָעֵי שִׁטִּין.

And the parallel in Targum Yonasan:

Why does Rashi explain Onkelos in this manner? He is following the lead of the gemara in Shabbos 28a:

גופא בעי רבי אלעזר עור בהמה טמאה מהו שיטמא טומאת אהלין מאי קמיבעיא ליה אמר רב אדא בר אהבה תחש שהיה בימי משה קמיבעיא ליה טמא היה או טהור היה אמר רב יוסף מאי תיבעי ליה תנינא לא הוכשרו למלאכת שמים אלא עור בהמה טהורה בלבד. מתיב רבי אבא רבי יהודה אומר שני מכסאות היו אחד של עורות אילים מאדמים ואחד של עורות תחשים רבי נחמיה אומר מכסה אחד היה ודומה כמין תלא אילן והא תלא אילן טמא הוא ה"ק כמין תלא אילן הוא שיש בו גוונין הרבה ולא תלא אילן דאילו התם טמא והכא טהור א"ר יוסף א"ה היינו דמתרגמינן ססגונא ששש בגוונין הרבה

Or, in English:

[To revert to] the main text: 'R. Eleazar propounded: Can the skin²³  of an unclean animal be defiled with the defilement of tents?'²⁴  What is his problem?²⁵ — Said R. Adda b. Ahabah: His question relates to the tahash which was in the days of Moses,²⁶ — was it unclean or clean? R. Joseph observed, What question is this to him? We learnt it! For the sacred work none but the skin of a clean animal was declared fit.

R. Abba objected: R. Judah said: There were two coverings, one of dyed rams' skins, and one of tahash skins. R. Nehemiah said: There was one covering²⁷  and it was like a squirrel['s].²⁸  But the squirrel is unclean!-This is its meaning: like a squirrel['s], which has many colours, yet not [actually] the squirrel, for that is unclean, whilst here a clean [animal is meant]. Said R. Joseph: That being so, that is why we translate it sasgawna [meaning] that it rejoices in many colours.²⁹

(A parenthetical note regarding the rendition of tala ilan as squirrel in the above translation:

1.  Jast., lit.,'hanging on the tree'. It is doubtful, however, whether a squirrel is meant, as the context shows that a striped (or speckled) animal of many colours is referred to.

Rabbi Natan Slifkin has a lengthy discussion of tachash in Sacred Monsters, and says the following about tala ilan:

)

The Peshitta, from the Syriac-speaking Christians also has sasgona, which makes me wonder whether this is a fanciful etymology designed to colorfully tie in the Targum to this particular peshat :

My inclination, then, is that there is a standard Aramaic word sasgona, rather than this being some composite, and that sasgona is either a color or animal.

Ibn Ezra writes regarding the identity of the tachash:

תחשים -מין חיה הייתה ידועה בימים ההם. כי כן כתוב: ואנעלך תחש. והנה כבר היה נודע.

"They are a species of wild animal which were well-known in those days. For so is written {Yechezkel 16:10}:

י  וָאַלְבִּישֵׁךְ רִקְמָה, וָאֶנְעֲלֵךְ תָּחַשׁ; וָאֶחְבְּשֵׁךְ בַּשֵּׁשׁ, וַאֲכַסֵּךְ מֶשִׁי.

10 I clothed thee also with richly woven work, and shod thee with sealskin, and I wound fine linen about thy head, and covered thee with silk.

And thus behold, they were already known."

(In another, parallel peirush, Ibn Ezra deduces from this that tachash skin is thick, for one only makes shoes of thick leather. He further expresses the idea that this this leather was from some bovine species.)

In saying that it is a known species, based on the verse in Yechezkel, it would appear that Ibn Ezra aims to counter the Midrash, and Rashi.

The Targum there is mesan diykar, which thus means fine shoes. Rashi follows this. And so the Peshitta, like the Targum. Metzudat David takes it as "the skin of the tachash".

Mizrachi answers Ibn Ezra's point as follows:

Thus, his first suggestion is that there were two animals, and one of them was called both tachash and tala ilan, and that because this species had many colors, just like the tachash, it was called by this name. And this tachash was always present, but was a non-kosher species. The other tachash was the one which only existed for the short while in the midbar, and was a kosher species. A second answer he offers is that they preserved the skins of Moshe Rabbenu's tachash in order to make shoes later. But he finds reason to reject the second answer.

I am not persuaded by his first answer, either. This is his own invention, rather than the position in the gemara. For the idea developed in the gemara was the reverse, that the tachash was like the tala ilan in respect to being multi-colored, not vice versa. Not that the tala ilan was even called tachash! Nor is it convincing that they would name a common species for a once-occurring species that then disappeared.

A better answer for Rashi would be that tachash in that other pasuk in Yechezkel does not mean that particular animal, but rather as the Targum there, and Rashi himself, render it.

Turning back to Onkelos and sasgona, I would would note that sas is worm in Aramaic and that gevan is color, such that it may simply refer to a color of the sas worm. I could also point to the word argaman, which is Aramaic is ar-gevan, perhaps of similar construction. So, Onkelos might not be intending to highlight a particular animal with this, or endorsing this Rabbi Nechemiah beast of multiple colors theory, despite how Rav Yosef interprets sasgevana in the gemara.

This is what Jastrow (page 1009) has to say about the word:

Note his second translation of the word as "scarlet", in the context of scarlet shoes. This is the targum of Shir Hashirim 7:2:

ב  מַה-יָּפוּ פְעָמַיִךְ בַּנְּעָלִים, בַּת-נָדִיב; חַמּוּקֵי יְרֵכַיִךְ--כְּמוֹ חֲלָאִים, מַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵי אָמָּן.

2 How beautiful are thy steps in sandals, O prince's daughter! The roundings of thy thighs are like the links of a chain, the work of the hands of a skilled workman.

The Targum reads:
אמר שלמה ברוח נבואה מן קדם יי
כמה שפירן רגליהון דישראל כד סלקן לאתחזאה
תלת זמנין בשתא בסנדלין דססגונא ומקרבין ית
נדריהון וית נדבתהון ובניהון נפקי ירכיהון יאון כיוהרין
דקביעין על כלילה דקודשא דעבד בצלאל אומנא לאהרן כהנא

He tells us to compare with Yechezkel 16:10, which is the pasuk above. Nothing in the pasuk itself tells us that this means scarlet. But by P. Sm., he means (Robert) Payne Smith, 2862, who gives a Persian derivation of this.

Looking it up in Payne Smith's Syriac dictionary, we indeed have this:

Where vermilion is any red color, while sky-blue or blue-black are other colors. I don't know enough Persian to know that this is accurate.

There is an interesting writeup of Tachash in Wikipedia. Here is some of what they say:

 The Seventy understand tahash as the color hyacinth: the same as indigo, or sapphire, or navy, or a deep, clear sky blue (after sunset, evening).

The Septuagint translators render 'orot T'cHashim as hyacinth skins. (see Tagelmust)

Thus, the Septuagint renders it as a color, hyacinth. Also, Josephus:

The Jewish Historian Josephus in his work The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 3:6:1 (Ant.3.102-103) says:

Hereupon the Israelites rejoiced at what they had seen and heard of their conductor, and were not wanting in diligence according to their ability; for they brought silver, and gold, and brass (bronze, copper,) and of the best sorts of wood, and such as would not at all decay by putrefaction; camels' hair also, and sheepskins, some of them dyed of a blue color, and some of a scarlet; some brought the flower for the purple color, and others for white, with wool dyed by the flowers aforementioned; and fine linen and precious stones, which those that use costly ornaments set in ouches of gold; they brought also a great quantity of spices; for of these materials did Moses build the tabernacle...

But I am not entirely persuaded by this quote, for how do we know that the blue or scarlet refer to tachash. The scarlet would be the orot elim me'adamim. Maybe  the blue was from techelet? Maybe not, as this matches how some understand the Targum as well. At any rate, he continues:

A few paragraphs further on Antiquities 3:6:4 (Ant.3.132-133) says:

There were also other curtains made of skins above these, which afforded covering and protection to those that were woven, both in hot weather and when it rained; andgreat was the surprise of those who viewed these curtains at a distance, for they seemed not at all to differ from the color of the sky; but those that were made of hair and of skins, reached down in the same manner as did the veil at the gates, and kept off the heat of the sun, and what injury the rains might do, and after this manner was the tabernacle reared.

Thus, sky-blue.

Also, Aquila:

Aquila of Sinope, a 2nd century CE native of Pontus in Anatolia, and a disciple of Rabbi Akiba, produces an exceedingly literal translation of theTanakh into Greek around 130. There is some (inconclusive) evidence that he retains the Greek ὑακἱνθινος (deep "blue") as the literal translation of the Hebrew ^[31]תחשים.

Here is Shadal's take, in Ohev Ger, just focused on our pasuk in Teruma:

He notes that it is always without a leading daled. It is umashkei sasgona, rather than umashkei de-sasgona, in all versions. One commentator (author of sefer יא"ר writes that this is because sasgona was not the name of the animal itself, but rather a name which refers to the many colors. Shadal finds support to this in the Aruch who brings a disease called sasgonia, where the skin turns many colors. {J: See Jastrow cite this, above.) And in truth, if the tachash were a species of animal which only existed for its brief time in the days of Moshe, it would not be possible that it would have a specific name in the Aramaic language, for the people of Bavel did not see it nor know of it.

A good point. I don't know that we should necessarily make so much of Onkelos' lack of a daled, given that Targum Pseudo-Yonatan on the same pasuk, and the Targum to Shir Hashirim do make use of the daled. But, even with the daled, it could be a color, or refer to some multi-colored aspect of it.

As a result of all this, I think that IF Rashi is taking sasgona as the name of the animal, as it seems to me that he is, he is perhaps justified on the basis of how it might be interpreted in the gemara, but I don't agree that this was the intent of Onkelos.