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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Sandal
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na'al. A sole attached to the foot by thongs, Greek hupodema (; ). Often ornamentally inlaid with gold, silver, jewels, and silk (). The materials were leather, felt, cloth, or wood, occasionally shod with iron. A shoe was delivered in token of transferring property: "over Edom will I cast My shoe." i.e. I will take possession of it, treading on its pride as it had trodden Israel as an invader (; ; ; ). The custom, which existed among the Indians and the ancient Germans, arose from the taking possession of property by treading the soil (), hence handing the shoe symbolized renunciation and transfer of ownership (; -8). When a Bedouin husband divorces a runaway wife, he says, "She was my slipper, I have cast her off." (Burckhardt). In ; , the image is, one about to wash his feet getting the slave to untie his shoe or else sandal. Hengstenberg so explains , "Moab is My washing tub; to Edom will I cast My shoe," namely, to "bear" as My slave.
The latchet was the strap across the instep, securing it on the foot, of small value (; ; ). "Buy the needy for a pair of shoes," i.e. by oppression compel them to sell themselves to us as bondmen, in order that our great women may have elaborately ornamented sandals. Sandals were laid aside indoors, and only put on in a journey or military expedition (; ; ; ). "Your feet shod with the preparation () of the gospel of peace," i.e. preparedness for the good warfare, produced by the gospel, which brings peace within though there is conflict outside with Satan and the world (; ; ; ). The shoes and sandals were taken off during meals (; -6); but the Jews wore sandals on their feet at the Passover, as ready for the journey ().
They put off sandals in reverence at a sacred place (; ). So the priests in the temple officiated barefoot; so the Mahometans of Palestine before entering a mosque or the Kaaba at Mecca, and the Mesopotamian Yezidis before entering the tomb of a patron saint, and the Samaritans before treading Mount Gerizim. A sign of mourning (; ); humiliation (; ; ), "I shod thee with badgers' skins" or seal skins, and skins of other marine animals of the Red Sea; the material of the Hebrew shoes and of the tabernacle covering. (See BADGER.) , "provide not shoes," but , "be shod with sandals"; harmonizes them, "carry not shoes," i.e., do not, as most travelers, carry an extra pair in case the pair in use became worn out.