Page 256 - Foundations

and discovery have served to clear up the subject in a matter entirely satisfactory. The reem is not
a one-horned creature, like the rhinoceros, as has been generally supposed, but a pure animal of the
ox kind, though wild, untamable, fierce, and terrible. Two passages prove that it was a great two-
horned and mighty creature, now, so far as known, entirely extinct, but once common in North-
western Asia, Assyria, and Middle Europe. Remains of it have of late years been discovered in the
north of Palestine, and Caesar, in the account of his wars, describes it as being hunted in the
Hercynian forest in his day... It was a formidable animal, “scarcely less than the elephant in size, but
in nature, color, and form, a true ox.” Its strength and speed were very great, and it was so fierce that
it did not spare man or beast when it caught sight of them. It was wholly intractable, and could not
be habituated to man, no matter how young it was taken...

This animal was particularly distinguished for its great, outspread, sharp, and irresistible horns, to
which the horns of ordinary oxen were not to be compared. Hence Caesar says, when a hunter
succeeded in killing one, pitfalls being the chief means of capture, he made a public exhibition of the
horns as the trophies of his success, and was the wonder and praise of all who beheld.

Kenneth Fleming adds the following information.

It is now known to be a larger and fiercer type of cattle which modern versions usually term the wild
ox. Famous for its size and ferocity, it was the prize of great hunters in the records of Egyptian kings
like Tutmose III and Assyrian kings. It seems to have survived at least until the time of the Caesars
but is now extinct...

The wild bull (rimu) is a symbol of power and rule. Balaam describes the power of Jehovah on the
behalf of Israel: “He is for them like the horns of the wild ox [rimu]” (Numbers 23:22).

I suppose I was in my late thirties when I first read that the tribe of Joseph carried the symbol of the
reem, the sign of the constellation we call Taurus, on their banners. This fact is declared by Josephus,
the Jewish historian of the first century A.D.. There is much Biblical support to link the tribe of
Joseph to this ferocious animal. When Moses pronounced a blessing upon each of the twelve tribes
of Israel, he spoke the following words for the tribe of Joseph.

Deuteronomy 33:17
“As the first-born of his ox, majesty is his, and his horns are the horns of the wild ox (rimu); With
them he shall push the peoples, all at once, to the ends of the earth. And those are the ten thousands
of Ephraim, and those are the thousands of Manasseh.”

The two horns of the reem are compared to the two tribes that descended from Joseph, Ephraim and
Manasseh. Interestingly, there are two star clusters located in Taurus, an occurrence that is unique
among the constellations. These star clusters are referred to as the Pleiades and the Hyades. Even as
Joseph was unique among his brothers in receiving the birthright, the honor and preeminence of the
firstborn son though he was in fact the eleventh son born to Jacob, and this birthright involved
inheriting a double portion from his father, so too did Joseph become two tribes in Israel. The two
horns of the bull, like the two clusters of stars in the constellation, represent two companies of people.
In one sense they are clearly Ephraim and Manasseh. In another they are Israel and the Church. And