the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch.” It has been thought that in this verse demeshek should be translated by silk. The shesh [probably the same word as demeshek of Genesis xli 42, of many chapters in Exodus, and of Ezekiel xxvii 7, is in all these places uniformly translated in the authorized English version of the Bible by “ fine linen ” and “ linen,” that is, of Egypt. But in Genesis xli 42, the margin gives “silk,” and shesh is translated by “silk” in Proverbs xxxi 22. Elsewhere the Hebrew words which have been translated by “ linen ” and “ fine linen ” are bad. in Exodus xxviii 42, xxxix 28, Leviticus vi 10, and xvi 4, 23, 32, 1 Samuel ii 18, and xxir 18, 2 Samuel vi 14, 1 Chronicles xv 27, Ezekiel ix 2, 3, 11, and x 2, 6, 7, and Daniel x 5, and xii 7 ; butz [/ 3 vWos], 1 Chron. iv 21, xv 27, 2 Chron. ii 14, iii 14, and v 12, Esther i 6, and viii 15, and Ezekiel xxvii 15 ; sadin, Judges xiv 12, 13; etun , Proverbs vii 16, a word which, if it is identical with the Greek oOovq and oOoviov, would mean not linen but cotton ; and pishtah , Leviticus xiii 47, 48, 52, 59, Deuteronomy xxii 11, and Jeremiah xiii 1, translated “flax” in Exodus ix 31, Judges xv 14, Proverbs xxxi 13, Isaiah xix 9, and xiii 3, and Hosea ii 5; and “tow” in Isaiah xliii 17, pistah in fact denoting in Hebrew not only linen stuffs, but flax, and the flax plant. Richstofen believes the sherikoth of Isaiah xix 9, to be silk. It is difficult to believe that the Egyptians did not weave raw silk, as we know that they possessed the art of reducing Chinese silks to a sort of muslin-like web,
“A wondrous work, of thin transparent lawn,”
as Lucan describes it [Bk. x] in the account he gives of Cleopatra’s feast to Caesar ; and it is quite possible that “ the fine linen of Egypt,” and “ the fine linen of Colchis,” which was sent to Sardis to be dyed [Herodotus ii 105], may have included silk.
