Allusion is made to the speed with which the weaver throws his shuttle in Job vii. 6, "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are passed without hope." When the fabric was finished, the weaver cut it away from the thrum, an operation which is noticed in the following passage of Isa. xxxviii. 12, "Mine age is departed, and is removed from me like a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: He will cut me off with pining sickness." The latter sentence is translated in the Jewish Bible "He will cut me off from the thrum," and the same rendering is in the marginal note of the Authorized Version.
The reader may remember a remarkable prohibition in Deut. xxii. 11, "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as woollen and linen together," a prohibition which was sufficiently important to be repeated in Lev. xix. 19. Now the word which is rendered as "divers sorts" in one passage and as "mingled" in the other has been variously interpreted, some persons rendering it as motley, some as spurious or counterfeit, and some as spotted like a leopard. It is probable, however, that our Authorized Version is the correct one, and that we may accept the exposition of Josephus on the subject. He states that such garments, i.e. of linen warp and woollen woof, were intended wholly for sacerdotal use, and were in consequence prohibited to the laity.
Wool when taken from the Sheep was of various colours, according to the animal from which it was shorn; but the most valuable was necessarily the white variety, which might either be used without dyeing, or stained of any favourite hue. Several allusions to the whiteness of such wool are made in the Scriptures. See for example Ps. cxlvii. 16, "He giveth snow like wool, and scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes." Also Isa. i. 18, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." In the prophet Daniel the Ancient of Days is described as having "His garments as white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool." And in Rev. i. 14 the same image is repeated, "His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow."
The reader will not fail to observe that in all these passages wool and snow are mentioned as of equal whiteness. The reference is probably made to the newly-carded wool, which is peculiarly white and soft.
Wool was often dyed of various colours; blue, purple, and scarlet being those which were generally employed. The rams' skins which formed part of the covering of the Tabernacle were ordered to be dyed scarlet, partly on account of the significance of the colour, and partly because none but the best and purest fleeces would be chosen for so rare and costly a dye. How the colour was produced we shall learn towards the end of the volume.
As with us, sheep-shearing was always a time of great rejoicing and revelry, which seem often to have been carried beyond the bounds of sobriety. Thus when Nabal had gathered together his three thousand Sheep in Carmel, and held a shearing festival, David sent to ask for some provisions for his band, and was refused in accordance with the disposition of the man, who had inflamed his naturally churlish nature with wine. "He held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king: and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken" (1 Sam. xxv. 36).
The same was probably the case when Laban was shearing his Sheep (Gen. xxxi. 19). Otherwise it would scarcely have been possible for Jacob to have gone away unknown to Laban, taking with him his wives and children, his servants, his camels, and his flocks, the rapid increase of which had excited the jealousy of his uncle, and which were so numerous that, in fear of his brother Esau, he divided them into two bands, and yet was able to select from them a present to his brother, consisting in all of nearly six hundred sheep, camels, oxen, goats, and asses.
Sometimes the shepherds and others who lived in pastoral districts made themselves coats of the skins of the Sheep, with the wool still adhering to it. The custom extends to the present day, and even in many parts of Europe the sheep-skin dress of the shepherds is a familiar sight to the traveller. The skin was sometimes tanned and used as leather, but was considered as inferior to that of the goat. Mr. Tristram conjectures that the leathern "girdle" worn by St. John the Baptist was probably the untanned sheep-skin coat which has been just mentioned. So it is said of the early Christians, that "they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented," the sheep-skins in question being evidently the rude shepherd's coats.
Next to the wool come the horns.