שריקות וארגים הורי
According to this arrangement, which seems most suitable to the rules of grammatical construction, we have three co-ordinate phrases in the plural number, denoting three different classes of artificers. The second, שריקות, would by its termination denote female artificers, viz. women employed in combing wool, flax, or other substances. On the whole we are inclined to adopt this explanation of the word, as it appears to be attended with the least difficulty, either grammatical or etymological.
[2] Miscellanea Sacra, l. ii. c. 11.
Silk is mentioned Prov. xxxi. 22. in King James’s Translation, i. e. the common English version, and in the margin of Gen. xli. 42. But the use of the word is quite unauthorized.
After a full examination of the whole question Braunius[3] decides that there is no mention of silk in the whole of the Old Testament, and that it was unknown to the Hebrews in ancient times.
“There can be no doubt,” says Professor Hurwitz, “that manufactures and the arts must have attained a high degree of perfection at the time when Moses wrote; and that many of them were known long before that period, we have the evidence of Scripture. It is true that inventions were at first few, and their progress very slow, but they were suited to the then condition and circumstances of man, as is evident even in the art of clothing. Placed in the salubrious and mild air of paradise, our first parents could hardly want any other covering than what decency required. Accordingly we find that the first and only article of dress was the חגורה chagora, the belt, (not aprons, as in the established version). The materials of which it was made were fig leaves; (Gen. iii. 7.) the same tree that afforded them food and shelter, furnished them likewise with materials for covering their bodies. But when in consequence of their transgressions they were to be ejected from their blissful abode, and forced to dwell in less favourable regions, a more substantial covering became necessary, their merciful Creator made them (i. e. inspired them with the thoughts of making for themselves) כתנות עור coats of skins. (Gen. iii. 21.) The original word is כתנת c’thoneth, whence the Greek χιτὼν the tunic, a close garment that was usually worn next the skin, it reached to the knees, and had sleeves (in after times it was made either of wool or linen.) After man had subdued the sheep (Hebrew כבשׂ caves from כגש to subdue[4]) and learned how to make use of its wool, we find a new article of dress, namely the שמלה simla, an upper garment: it consisted of a piece of cloth about six yards long and two or three wide, in shape not unlike our blankets. This will explain Gen. ix. 23, ‘And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father.’ It served as a dress by day, as a bed by night, (Exod. xxii. 26,) ‘If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down; for that is his covering only; it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep?’ And sometimes burdens were carried in it, (Exod. xii. 34,) ‘And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.’
“In the course of time various other garments came into use, as mentioned in several other parts of Scripture. The materials of which these garments were usually made are specified in Leviticus xiii. 47-59, ‘The garment also that the plague of the leprosy is in, whether it be a woollen garment or a linen garment, whether it be in the warp or woof, of linen or of woollen; whether in a skin, or in anything made of skin, &c.’”
[3] De vestitu Heb. Sacerdotum, l. 1. cap. viii. § 8.
[4] There is not the least shadow of truth in support of such a deduction; and particularly so since the general tenor of the Scriptures leads to a very different conclusion. We are, therefore, not authorized to give our support to any such hypothesis. The history of the Sheep and Goat is so interwoven with the history of man, that those naturalists have not reasoned correctly, who have thought it necessary to refer the first origin of either of them to any wild stock at all. Such view is, we imagine, more in keeping with the inferences to be drawn from Scripture History with regard to the early domestication of the sheep. Abel, we are told, was a keeper of sheep, and it was one of the firstlings of his flock that he offered to the Lord, and which, proving a more acceptable sacrifice, excited the implacable and fatal jealousy of his brother Cain. (See Part ii. pp. [217] and [293].)
In our search for the distant origin of any art or science, or in looking through the long vista of ages remote even to nations extinct before our own, we are favored with satisfactory evidence so long as we are accompanied with authentic records: beyond, all is dark, obscure, tradition, fable. On such ground it would be credulous or rash in the extreme to repeat as our own, an affirmation, when that rests on the single testimony of one party or interest, especially when that is of a very questionable character. It is even safer, when history or well authenticated records fail us, to appeal to philosophy, or to the well known laws of mind, from which all arts and science spring. The former favors us with the commanding evidence of certainty and decision; and though the latter may only afford the testimony of analogy, yet, is its probability more safe, at least, than what rests on misguided calculations or on the legendary tales of artifice and fiction.