signifies[1] the place which yields rest. The spinning-wheel is a German invention of the 16th century, but the rock standing on the ground, or held also in the hands, the spindle and the whorl, are more ancient.[2]
With the spindle תמך stands in fit relation, for it is twirled between the fingers, as Catullus says of Fate:Libratum tereti versabat pollice fusum.[3]
Verse 20
That which impels the housewife to this labour is not selfishness, not a narrow-hearted limitation of her care to the circle of what is her own, but love, which reaches out far beyond this circle: 20 כ She holdeth out her hand to the unfortunate, And stretcheth forth her hands to the needy.
With כּפּיה, 19b, is connected the idea of artistic skilfulness; with כּפּהּ, here that of offering for counsel (vid., at Isa 2:6); with sympathy and readiness to help, she presents herself to those who are oppressed by the misfortunes of life as if for an alliance, as if saying: place confidence in me, I shall do whatever I can - there thou hast my hand! Hitzig erroneously thinks of the open hand with a gift lying in it: this ought to be named, for כף in itself is nothing else than the half-opened hand.
- ↑ Otherwise, but improbably, Schultens: colus a כשׁר = katr kathr, necti in orbem, circumnecti in globum. In פּלך, whence פּלך, he rightly finds the primary meaning of circumvolutio sive gyratio.
- ↑ A view of the ancient art of spinning is afforded by the figures of the 12th Dynasty (according to Lepsius, 2380-2167 b.c.) in the burial chamber of Beni Hassan (270 kilometres above Bulak, on the right bank of the Nile). M. J. Henry, in his work L'Egypte Pharaonique (Paris 1846), Bd. 2, p. 431, mentions that there are figures there which represent “toutes les opérations de la fabrication des tissus depuis le filage jusqu au tissage.” Then he continues: Lex fuseaux dont se servent les fileuses sont excatement semblables aux nôtres, et on voit même ces fileuses imprimer le mouvement de rotation à ces fuseaux, en en froissant le bout inferieur entre leur main et leur cuisse.
- ↑ In the “marriage of Peleus and Thetis,” Catullus describes the work of the Fates: “Their hands are ceaselessly active at their never-ending work; while the left holds the rock, surrounded with a soft fleece, the right assiduously draws the thread and forms it with raised fingers; then it swiftly turns the spindle, with the thumb stretched down, and swings it away in whirling circles.” Then follows the refrain of the song of the Fates: Currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. - (After Hertzberg's Translation.)
