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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 31:22 - 31:22
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From the protecting, and at the same time ornamental clothing of the family, the poet proceeds to speak of the bed-places, and of the attire of the housewife:
22 מ She prepareth for herself pillows;
Linen and purple is her raiment.
Regarding מַרְבַדִּים (with ב raphatum), vid., at Pro 7:16. Thus, pillows or mattresses (Aquila, Theodotion, περιστρώματα; Jerome, stragulatam vestem; Luther, Decke = coverlets) to make the bed soft and to adorn it (Kimchi: לְיַפּוֹת על המטות, according to which Venet. κόσμια); Symmachus designates it as ἀμφιτάπους, i.e., τάπητες (tapetae, tapetia, carpets), which are hairy (shaggy) on both sides.
(Note: Vid., Lumbroso, Recherches sur l'Economie politique de l'Egypte sous les Lagides (Turin, 1870), p. 111; des tapis de laine de premeère qualité, pourpres, laineux des deux côtés (ἀμφίταποι).)
Only the lxx makes out of it δισσὰς χλαίνας, lined overcoats, for it brings over שׁנים. By עָֽשְׂתָה־לָּהּ it is not meant that she prepares such pillows for her own bed, but that she herself (i.e., for the wants of her house) prepares them. But she also clothes herself in costly attire. שֵׁשׁ (an Egyptian word, not, as Heb., derived from שׁוּשׁ, cogn. יָשֵׁשׁ, to be white) is the old name for linen, according to which the Aram. translates it by בּוּץ, the Greek by βύσσος, vid., Genesis, pp. 470, 557, to which the remark is to be added, that the linen [Byssus], according to a prevailing probability, was not a fine cotton cloth, but linen cloth. Luther translates שׁשׁ, here and elsewhere, by weisse Seide [white silk] (σηρικόν, i.e., from the land of the Σῆρες, Rev 18:12); but the silk, is first mentioned by Ezekiel under the name of מֶשִׁי; and the ancients call the country where silk-stuff (bombycina) was woven, uniformly Assyria. אַרְגָּמָן (Aram. אַרְגְּוָן, derived by Benfey, with great improbability, from the rare Sanscrit word râgavant, red-coloured; much rather from רָגַם = רָקַם, as stuff of variegated colour) is red purple; the most valuable purple garments were brought from Tyre and Sidon.