The acacia, perhaps the seyal, or Nilotica or Arabica. The ark, the staves, the shewbread table and staves, and the altars of burnt offering and incense, were made of shittah (Exodus 25; 26; 36-38). Isaiah foretells (Isa 41:19) God's planting it in the wilderness. The Egyptian saut. Many acacia trees grow on Sinai; they grow to the size of a mulberry tree. It was probably in the shittah or acacia that the flame appeared which did not burn the bush (Exodus 3). The gum arabic is obtained by incisions in the bark. The shittah boards of the tabernacle, ten cubits long and one and a half broad, were not necessarily one piece but formed of pieces joined together. The acacia is not that so-called in England, the Robinia pseudo acacia, a N. American plant; but of the order Leguminosae, Mimoseae. Hard and durable wood. If the ark had been made in Palestine, oak or cedar would have been its material; its being said to be made of shittah, the wood of the wilderness, is an undesigned propriety and mark of truth (Ex 25:10).