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(Hebrews tsebi), properly the gazelle (Arab, ghazal), permitted for food (Deuteronomy 14:5; comp. Deuteronomy 12:15, 22; 15:22; 1 Kings 4:23), noted for its swiftness and beauty and grace of form (2 Samuel 2:18; 1 Chronicles 12:8; Cant. 2:9; 7:3; 8:14). The gazelle (Gazella dorcas) is found in great numbers in Palestine. “Among the gray hills of Galilee it is still ‘the roe upon the mountains of Bether,’ and I have seen a little troop of gazelles feeding on the Mount of Olives close to Jerusalem itself’ (Tristram). The Hebrew word (‘ayyalah) in Proverbs 5: 19 thus rendered (R.V., “doe”), is properly the “wild she-goat,” the mountain goat, the ibex. (See 1 Samuel 24:2; Psalm 104:18; Job 39:1.)

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