to be seen with arms, legs, and breasts bare, whilst they will be most punctilious to cover the mouth with the end of the veil when meeting a man. It is clearly on account of this semi-nude condition being a mark of the common people, that so often in the Word we have "nakedness," that is, in most cases doubtless, "semi-nakedness," mentioned as a judgment. It implies degradation to the rank of the poor ignorant Fellahheen, ever in Oriental countries despised and oppressed. Thus Samaria is represented as a great and wealthy lady crying in her ruin and distress "Therefore let me wail and howl, Let me go stripped and naked ;"1 that is, like a poor Fellahhah, or village woman. And again, a few verses further "Pass away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, Naked in thy shame." " In both these places, as in many others, "naked" evidently stands by the figure of Hyperbole, or exaggeration so frequent in Scripture, as it is on the lips of the most truthful Easterns-for "partially naked;" hence, "in poverty and lowliness." To this day, for a respectable well-to-do Fellahh to appear in public without his abba, or "outer cloak," would be considered by him almost equivalent to going out naked. The same applies to the great apostle's words, which clearly have the hyperbolic sense for which I am contending, when he says of "us, the apostles," "even to this present hour we . . . are naked;"1 and exclaims triumphantly in another place, "Shall . . nakedness"... separate us from the love of God?" 2 For it is equally true of the men of the humble Fellahheen and Bedaween classes, that, as opposed to the rich and respectable Belladeen, a great part of their body and limbs are left bare. Thus is explained the terrible threatening in Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt serve thine enemies whom Jehovah shall send against thee . . . in nakedness"-that is, clad in the garb of poor slaves. Hence, too, "nakedness" stands, by the figure of Metonymy, for "shame," with which it is connected in the idea of the rich and great by its settled relationship with poverty and contempt; as when Saul passionately exclaims to Jonathan in reference to his faithfulness to David, "Thou hast chosen the son of Jesse . . . to the shame of thy mother's nakedness." So of Jerusalem, the virgin daughter of Sion 5 "All that honoured her despise her, because they see her nakedness;" that is, "because they see her shame." And here again let me point out another strange difference between the East and the West in a further 1 1 Cor. iv. II. 2 Rom. viii. 35. See Jas. ii. 15, which requires the same sense. See Appendix A., p. 287, and also p. 119. 3 Deut. xxviii. 48. 5 I Sam. xx. 30. 6 Lam. i. 8. See also Deut. xxiii. 14; xxiv. 1; Ezek. xvi. 8; xxiii. 29; Hab. ii. 15, &c. point connected with feminine attire. The mourning colour with us is black, but with them it is dark blue. I am not aware that any explanation of this has yet been given; but to my mind, after having resided in Palestine, a deeply interesting and most probable one presents itself. The usual mourning robe in the case of men we know was "sackcloth." Every time the word occurs in the Bible, and we have it in forty-one places, it plainly refers to the mourning habit.1 But why should sackcloth in connection with ashes on the head, that is, unkempt hair and dirt, have denoted great grief? The answer is plain. The cloak of the Fellahheen and Bedaween is a rude garment of sacking, made, like the Bedaween tentcloths, of goat's or camel's hair, and in its sleeveless, square, formless shape, looks like a veritable sack. Sackcloth, therefore, is the coarse and common stuff of the outer garment of the labourer, or peasant. Hence, as Easterns by all their mourning observances endeavour to show that their grief is so great as to lead them to entirely neglect the proper cleansing and adorning of the body, so by binding sackcloth about them they appear dressed in the material worn by the very poorest of the people. And surely the women of the upper classes wear dark blue for the same reason. All the women of the Fellahheen and Bedaween have their long kamise, the one principal garment they wear, dyed with indigo blue; and therefore when rich and great 1 Gen. xxxvii. 34; 2 Sam. iii. 31; 1 Kings xx. 31; xxi. 27, &c. &c. |