A to the sole of the foot with strings, tied round the ankle and leg, and which are called shoe-latchets, Gen. xiv. 23, &c. When they approached God, in acts of worship, this part of the dress was laid aside: the priest always ministered bare foot. 7. In describing the dress of the Jewish people, we must not omit their phylacteries, or tephelim, which were held in such estimation among them. These phylacteries were little rolls of parchment, in which were written the following passages of the law :-(1.) "Sanctify unto me all the first-born : whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast, it is mine," &c. Ex. xiii. 2-10. (2.) "And it shall be, when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites," &c. to ver. 16.-(3.) From the 4th verse of the 6th chap. of Deuteronomy, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," to ver. 9.- (4.) From ver. 13 of chap. xi." And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently to my commandments," &c. to end of ver. 21. These they wore upon the forehead, and the wrist of the left arm. The obligation to wear these appendages to their dress is founded on Ex. xiii. 16; Deut. vi. 8; xi. 18. And it is to be observed, that our Saviour finds no fault with the Pharisees for wearing them, but only for making them large, to be seen of men, Matt. xxiii. 5. 8. Nose and ear-rings are very general parts of the dress of an Eastern female, and they are often mentioned in Scripture. See Gen. xxiv. 47; xxxv. 4; Isa. iii. 20; Ezek. xvi. 12, &c. Sir John Chardin says, "It is the custom in almost all the East, for the women to wear rings in their noses, in the left nostril, which is bored low down in the middle. These rings are of gold, and have commonly two pearls, with one ruby between them. I never saw a girl, or young woman in Arabia, or in all Persia, who did not wear a ring after this manner in her nostril."* Montfaucon describes a statue of a female, which was discovered at Ponto when he was at Rome, having in her ears two large pendants; on one of which was the figure of Jupiter, and on the other that of Juno. Will this circumstance help us to determine the reason for Jacob burying underground, all the rings which were in the ears of his family when he came out of Shechem?+ The prophet Ezekiel (xvi. 11) speaks of " chains on the neck," as does Solomon also (Cant. i. 10), and there seems to be a reference to the thread on which the precious stones forming these were hung, in Gen. xiv. 23.-" I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet," &c. The following description of the dress of a Turkish sultana will afford some idea of the nature of their ornaments: -"Round her neck she wore three chains, which reached to her knee; one of large pearls, at the bottom of which hung a fine coloured emerald, as big as a turkey's egg; another consisting of 200 emeralds close joined together, of the most lively green, perfectly matched, every one as large as a half-crown piece, and as thick as three crown pieces; and another of small emeralds, perfectly round."* It is needless to say that the costliness of these ornaments would be proportionate to the condition of the wearer. Brace lets seem to have been worn on the arms by both male and female (2 Sam. i. 10; Is. iii. 19; Ezek. xvi. 11), and by the females, on the leg also, Is. iii. 20. Chardin says, that in Persia and Arabia, "the females wear rings about the ankle, which are full of little bells." This will explain Isaiah iii. 16. "They walk, mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet." Another accompaniment of female dress, was the hand mirror, which was made of metal; for of some of these, Moses made the foot of the laver (Ex. xxxviii. 8); and Dr. Lowth informs us, that he was possessed of one which had been found in the ruins of Herculaneum, which was not above three inches square. ‡ SECTION VI. MARRIAGES OF THE JEWS, AND TREATMENT OF THEIR CHILDREN. I. MARRIAGES.-1. Espousals-2. Purchasing the bride-3. Marriages contracted at an early age-4. Marriage ceremonies5. Public processions-6. Nuptial entertainments-7. The parable of the ten virgins -8. Polygamy-9. Divorce — 10. The support of widows-11. Laws relative to marriages. II. TREAT MENT OF CHILDREN. 1. Birth --2. Circumcision-3. Religious instruction-4. Trades-5. The first born-6.Adoption. I. There were several things connected with the nuptials of the Hebrews so essentially different from any thing ob Lady M. W. Montagu's Letters, vol. ii. Let. 39. + Much curious information relative to the Eastern dress may be seen in the Fragments to Calmet, Numbers 667-672, &c. Notes on Isa, viii. 1. served among us, that a short notice of them here is indispensable. 1. The first thing which merits attention is the method of contracting this sacred obligation-their espousals. It sometimes happened that several years elapsed between the espousals and the marriage of the contracting parties*, during which period the bride remained at home with her parents, and was under the same obligations of fidelity to her spouse as if the nuptials had been solemnized. See Matt. i. 18.In general, however, only two or three months elapsed from the time of the espousals to that of the marriage. 2. It is seen, from several passages of Scripture, that the custom of purchasing the bride prevailed among the descendants of Abraham. Thus Shechem says to Jacob, whose daughter Dinah he wished to espouse, "Ask me never so much dowry and gifts," &c. See also 1 Sam. xviii. 25. The custom still exists in many parts of the East, and hence a numerous family of daughters is a source of great wealth.— Where the bridegroom is not possessed of sufficient property to obtain the object of his desire by purchase, he obtains her by servitude. "They build houses, work in their rice plantations, and do all the services that may be necessary; and this often lasts three or four years before they can be married." This will illustrate Gen. xxix. 27. 3. This sacred and important obligation was contracted at a very early age among the Jews, in compliance with Eastern customs; and hence the bride calls her husband, "the guide of my youth" (Prov. ii. 17. see also ver. 18). At the age of eighteen the males could marry, and the females when they were twelve and a day; till which time they were called little maids: but that very day they became young women. † Celibacy and sterility were considered great afflictions (Judg. xi. 37; 1 Sam. i. 11, &c.), and large families as peculiar marks of the providential blessing of God, Prov. xvii. 6. 4. Concerning their marriages, Dr. Brown has collected. the following particulars from the Jewish writers. On the day of the marriage, the bride was as elegantly attired as her circumstances would permit. For she was led by the women into the dressing chamber, without her veil, and with dishevelled hair, marriage songs being sung before her as she went. There she was placed on a beautiful seat, where they disposed her hair in ringlets (hence compared to the long curled hair of a flock of goats on mount Gilead, in Cant. iv. 1), and ornamented it with ribbands and trinkets. They then decked her *See Josephus, Antiq. b. xiv. c. 15. Dapper's Africa, p. 399. See also Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, &c. p. 385. in her wedding attire, and veiled her, like Rebecca, amidst the songs and rejoicings of her attendants. Thus was she 66 66 prepared as a bride adorned for her husband," Is. lxi. 10; Rev. xxi. 2. A virgin was married on the fourth day of the week, that if any doubts were entertained of her virginity, they could be settled by the council of three, on the Thursday, which was a synagogue and court day; and a widow was married on the fifth day of the week. A woman who was either divorced, or a widow, neither married nor was espoused till after ninety days, that it might be ascertained whether she was enceinte by her former husband; and if two heathens, who had been married, became proselytes to Judaism, they lived separate for the same length of time, that it might be seen which of their children were heathens, and which were Jews. * When the hour of marriage arrived, four persons walked before the bridegroom, carrying a canopy supported by four poles, that if the bride intended to walk home to the bridegroom's house after the ceremony, she might walk under it in company with her husband; and, in the interim, it either stood before the door, or was taken into the court, around which the house was built, if the marriage ceremony was to be performed there; all the bride's party exclaiming, Blessed be he who cometh :" welcoming thus the bridegroom and his friends. During the ceremony, if the father gave away his daughter, he took her by the hand, as Raguel did Sarah, when she was married to Tobit, presented her to the bridegroom, and said, "Behold, take her, after the law of Moses, and lead her away;" blessing them, taking paper, writing an instrument of covenants, and sealing it, Tobit vii. 13, 14.— But if the father did not act as the celebrator, the bride stood on the right hand of the bridegroom, in allusion to Ps. xlv. 9, and the Rabbi or Hezen of the synagogue, who acted as celebrator, took the extremity of the thelit, which was about the bridegroom's neck, and covered with it the head of the bride, as Boaz did Ruth, ch. iii. 9. After which he consecrated a cup of wine, the bye-standers joining in the cere mony; and the cup being thus blessed, it was given to the two contracting parties. The bridegroom afterwards taking the ring (a modern invention, instead of the sum of money anciently given as the dowry), and putting it on the finger of the bride, said, "Lo, thou art married to me with this ring, according to the form of Moses and of Israel." Two witnesses were then called, to hear the marriage contract read; and after they returned, another cup of wine was consecrated and divided among the guests. * Lightfoot, Hor, Heb.; Matt. i. 18; 1 Cor. vii. 14, 5. Matters were next so ordered, as to prepare for setting out to the house of the bridegroom; when, if there was a canopy, the bride and bridegroom walked under it (hence, says the spouse, "His banner over me was love," Cant. ii. 4); but if none, the bride and her companions were veiled, she, however, far deeper than they. Sometimes, also, they used a palanquin, and were carried in state from one house to the other; and it seems to have been to this that David alludes in Ps. xlv. 13, “The king's daughter is all glorious within (the palanquin, viz), her clothing is of wrought gold." And to this Solomon refers, when he says, of the chariot of the bridegroom that "Its wood was of cedar, its pillars of silver, its bottom of gold, its covering of purple, and the midst thereof paved with love, or poetical amorous inscriptions or devices, for the daughters of Jerusalem," Cant. iii. 9, 10. The marriage processions were commonly in the night, by torch-light; and Lightfoot says, they carried before them ten wooden staves, having each of them at top a vessel like a dish, in which was a piece of cloth or wick, dipped in oil, to give light to the company. * So that the parable of the ten virgins was evidently a delineation of national manners; since they required, in that case, not only to have oil in their lamps, but to have vessels containing a quantity of oil, in order to replenish these lamps from time to time. Indeed, we have several allusions to the same custom, in various passages of Scripture. Thus, the spouse, when speaking of the bridegroom, says, "My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand;" or, as the original expresses it, "lighted with ten thousand:" thereby meaning that he dazzled beholders as much as a bridegroom attended with ten thousand lamps, Cant. v. 10. And the bridegroom says of the spouse, that she is, "terrible as an army with banners," or, literally, that she is dazzling as women shone upon with the nuptial lamps, when their rich attire reflected a dazzling lustre. As they went to the bridegroom's house every person who met them gave place to the procession; a cup of wine was carried before them; and they were accompanied with music and dancing, Ps. xlv. 15. Hence, in one of the parables of our Lord, the children at their sport, when imitating a marriage procession, said, "We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced," Luke vii. 32. The praises of the bridegroom were also sung, in strains like those in Ruth iv. 11, 12; whilst the praises of the bride were celebrated in a similar manner.Money was scattered among the crowd, to remind them, if *Hor. Heb. Matt. xxv. 1. |