(Heb. tsabh). Ranked among the unclean animals (Lev. 11:29). Land tortoises are common in Syria. The LXX. renders the word by “land crocodile.” The word, however, more probably denotes a lizard, called by the modern Arabs dhabb.
Tortoise
1 verse
Leviticus
Leviticus 11:29
These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind,
From Easton's Bible Dictionary
Matthew George Easton, 1897
From Smith's Bible Dictionary
William Smith, 1884
(Heb. tsab). The tsab occurs only in (Leviticus 11:29) as the name of some unclean animal. The Hebrew word may be identified with the kindred Arabic dhab , "a large kind of lizard," which appears to be the Psommosaurus scincus of Cuvier.