Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 27:7
Fine linen with embroidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.
7. The rigging and furnishing of the ship. Her sail (ancient ships usually had but one) was embroidered byssus, fine linen, out of Egypt (Eze 16:10). Render: broidered byssus of Egypt was thy sail, to serve to thee for a pennon. The flag proper seems not to have been used in ancient navigation, its purpose was served by the sail, as for example at the battle of Actium the ship of Antony was distinguished by its purple sail. The word seems to mean sail, Isa 33:23. On “broidered” cf. ch. Eze 16:10; Eze 16:13; Eze 16:18.
that which covered thee ] lit. thy covering (in Isa 14:11 a coverlet, cf. Isa 23:18), either an awning, or more probably a cabin, the sides and roof of which were of the fine stuffs named.
the isles of Elishah ] In Gen 10:4 Elishah is one of the sons of Javan, i.e. Ionia or Grecian Asia. The Targ. renders “country of Italy.” Ges. combines the name with Elis, and understands the Peloponnesus in general, which was certainly noted for the dyes referred to in the verse.
8 seq. The manning of the ship. The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were her rowers, and her own wise men her steersmen.
thy mariners ] rowers. Sidon lay to the N. of Tyre, about half way between it and Beirut, and was probably the oldest Phnician town, Tyre being a colony. Sidon is the firstborn of Canaan (Gen 10:15), and is called Great Sidon in Jos 19:28. It is frequently referred to in Homer (e.g. Il. 7. 290), who does not mention Tyre. At a later time Tyre eclipsed her mother in power and wealth. Arvad (Aradus) lay greatly more to the N. It was built on a small island, over two miles from the mainland, and, being without natural harbours, piers were laboriously constructed of huge blocks of stone, 16 feet long by 7 broad, quarried on the island. It was dependent for water upon the mainland, but when its supply was cut off recourse was had to a powerful spring of fresh water which was known to rise under the sea in the channel between the town and the mainland. This spring was isolated and the water brought by a tube to the surface. The spring is said still to exist. Arvad, now Ruwd, or, Ruweideh, is often mentioned in the Assyrian Annals. Tiglath-pileser I. (c. 1100) embarked on ships of Arvad and sailed out into “the great sea,” Del., Parad. p. 281 (the same expression is used by another king of himself, Schrader, KAT. p. 184, on 1Ki 5:13, cf. p. 104). See chart of Arvad, Rawl., Phn. p. 74.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Or, Fine linen Gen 41:42 with embroidery from Egypt was thy sail that it might be to thee for a banner. Sails from Egypt were worked with various figures upon them which served as a device. Their boats had no separate pennons.
Blue and purple – Tyrian purple was famous. The Tyrians no doubt imported from the neighboring coasts the mollusks from which they dyed the fine linen of Egypt.
Isles of Elishah – See Gen 10:4. Elishah is considered equivalent to the Greek AEolis on the western coast of Asia Minor. This and the islands adjacent would very naturally have commerce with the Tyrians. In early days the supply of the murex from the coast of Phoenicia had been insufficient for the Tyrian manufactures. The isles of Greece abounded in the mollusks.
That which covered thee – As an awning.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 7. Fine linen] shesh, cotton cloth. In this sense the word is generally to be understood.
To be thy sail] Probably the flag – ensign or pennant, is meant.
Blue and purple from the isles of Elishah] Elis, a part of the Peloponnesus.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Fine linen; whereas thrift teaches us to use the coarse linen for like purposes, these prodigal Tyrians used the finest silken sails, as we may render the words.
With broidered work; divers figures, curiously drawn with the needle in this fine linen, which made exceeding costly sails; yet pride and wantonness in some of them went to the charges of it.
From Egypt; where was much of this fine linen, and many of these neat embroiderers.
Blue, or violet colour, and purple; both rich and noble colours: the garments of great men and princes were made hereof, Gen 41:42; Pro 31:22; see Eze 16:10.
From the isles of Elishah; either from the sea-coast of olis in the Lesser Asia, the inhabitants whereof were excellent in the skill of dying wool; or from Peloponnesus, in which is one country called Elis, famous for fine linen, and about the mouth of the river Eurotas. The fishing for the purple fish was fatuously known, so that it might be this place beside the isles of the gean and Cretian seas, as Cos, Nysirus, (called from its purples Porphyris,) Cythera, and the Cyclades, which are many; some twelve of better note we might name, as now called Andro, Parlo, Zea, Sdilli, Micoli, &c.
That which covered thee: he speaks not here of garments, but of the coverings they used in their ships or galleys. Their tilts, as our boatmen call them, the clothes they spread over their heads on ship-board, to keep them from sun and weather, were such as be fitted kings and princes for costliness and beauty.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. broidered . . . sailTheancients embroidered their sails often at great expense, especiallythe Egyptians, whose linen, still preserved in mummies, is of thefinest texture.
ElishahGreece; socalled from Elis, a large and ancient division of Peloponnesus.PAUSANIAS says that thebest of linen was produced in it, and in no other part of Greece;called by HOMER, Alisium.
that which covered theethyawning.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt,…. From whence came the finest and whitest linen; and which they embroidered with needlework, which looked very beautiful. Pliny x says there were four sorts of linen in Egypt, called Tanitic, Pelusiac, Butic, and Tentyritic, from the names and provinces where they were produced; of the second sort the garments of the high priest among the Jews were made; for they say y, on the day of atonement he was in the morning clothed with Pelusiac garments; that is, with garments made of linen which came from Pelusium, a well known city in Egypt; and which Jarchi z says was the best, and in the greatest esteem; and one of the Misnic commentators says a that the linen from Pelusium is fine and beautiful, and comes from the land of Raamses; and observes, that, in the Jerusalem Targum, Raamses is said to be Pelusium; but though they are not one and the same place, yet they are both in the same country, Egypt, and near one another; and with this sort of linen the priests of Hercules were clothed, according to Silius b; and so the , “shesh”, or linen, of which the garments of the Jewish priests in common were made, was linen from Egypt; and which their Rabbins c say is the best, and is only found there. The Phoenicians, of which Tyre was a principal city, took linen of Egypt, and traded with other nations with it, as well as made use of it for themselves; particularly with the Ethiopians, the inhabitants of the isle of Cernes, now called the Canaries, who took of them Egyptian goods, as linen, c. in lieu of which they had of them elephants’ teeth, the skins of lions, leopards, deer, and other creatures d: now such fine linen as this
was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail: not content with canvass or coarse linen, which would have done as well, they must have the finest Egyptian linen, and this very curiously embroidered, to make their sails of they spread upon their masts, to receive the wind; at least this they spread “for a flag” e, standard or ensign, as, the word may be rendered; when they hoisted up their colours on any occasion, they were such as these: “blue and purple, from the isles of Elishah, was that which covered thee”; meaning not garments made of cloth of these colours, which the master of the vessel or mariners wore; but the tilts, or tents, or canopies erected on the decks, where they sat sheltered from the rain, wind, or sun; these were made of stuff died of a violet and purple colour, the best they could get; and which they fetched from the isles of Elishah, or the Aegean sea, from Coa, Rhodia, Nisyrus, and other places famous for purple, as Tyre itself afterwards was. The Targum is,
“from the province of Italy;”
or of Apulia, as others f; see Re 18:12.
x Nat. Hist. l. 19. c. 1. y Misn. Yoma, c. 3. sect. 7. z Gloss. in T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 34. 2. a Bartenora in Misn. Yoma, ib. b “—-Velantur corpore lino, Et Pelusiaco praefulget stamine vertex.” L. 3. de Bell. Punic. c Aben Ezra in Exod. xxv. 4. d Vid. Reinesium de Lingua Punica, c. 2. sect. 13. e “in signum, [sive] vexillum”, Gussetius; so some in Bootius. f So R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 48. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(7) Fine linen with broidered work.To a modern sailor fine linen may seem both an extravagant and an insufficient material for a ships sails, but the State ships of antiquity were often fitted out in this way, and the sails embroidered in colours in place of a pennon. The clause literally is, Linen with embroidery from Egypt was for thy spreading out (sail), to be to thee for a sign.
Isles of Elishah.In Gen. 10:4, 1Ch. 1:7, Elishah is mentioned among the sons of Javan, or Ionia. The regions here referred to are the coasts of Asia Minor, where an abundant supply of the murex (from which came the famous purple dye) was obtained, when the quantity on the Tyrian coast was insufficient for its manufactures. That which covered thee is the awning spread over the ships deck.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
7. Fine linen R.V., “Of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was thy sail, that it might be to thee for an ensign” (or, “cabin,” Davidson). An ancient sail of this kind, made of separate pieces tied together, and hauling up like a Venetian blind, can now be seen in the Liverpool museum (W ilkinson, 2:213 N.). Cecil Torr ( Ancient Ships, 1894) gives pictures of ancient Phoenician ships, 700 B.C., with one mast and one yard carrying a square sail. This sail is formed of many pieces as also in an Athenian ship, 600 B.C. He shows that the sails of this era were generally of linen, though sometimes of the fiber of papyrus or of flax. They were often colored, vermilion being generally the badge of an admiral or monarch. In an Egyptian sail 600 B.C. several different colors are used. These ships had animals carved on the prows for figureheads and quite generally a huge eye “to see her way” says Torr; but more probably to guard her from the evil eye of the demons of the deep. On broidered work, see Eze 16:10.
Blue and purple, etc. R.V., “blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was thine awning.” This awning (literally, covering) may have been a cabin the sides and roof of which were composed of colored linen (Davidson). In the most ancient descriptions of a ship (see note Eze 27:4) there is mention of a cabin.
The isles of Elishah must have some close connection with the son of Javan (Gen 10:4). Movers identifies Elishah with Carthage because of Elissa, its founder. Dillmann locates it in South Italy. Sayce (Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible, 1898), because of a Tel-el-Amarna letter from the king of Alasia (Egyptian, Alsa), locates it closer to the Mediterranean coast, possibly Cyprus. But this was not the usual name for Cyprus, and Thothmes III includes Alsa among his Syrian conquests. It seems better to say, as the dye was common in many parts of the Mediterranean, that this is probably a term referring to the isles of Greece or some one of its colonies. This dye, which cannot now be obtained, cost one hundred denarii (over twenty dollars) a pound in the last days of the Roman republic.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Eze 27:7. Isles of Elishah Isles of Greece. It is remarkable that part of Peloponnesus was named Elis among the Grecian writers. Gebal in the ninth verse was a province of Phoenicia, near Tyre.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eze 27:7 Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.
Ver. 7. Fine linen. ] When coarse canvas might have served the turn as well.
From Egypt.
From the isles of Elishah,
Was that which covered thee.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Elishah. Probably the Greek AEolis: i.e. the coasts of Peloponnesus. Mentioned in Gen 10:4 with Javan (Ionia).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
linen: 1Ki 10:28, Pro 7:16, Isa 19:9
blue and purple: or, purple and scarlet, Exo 25:4, Jer 10:9
Elishah: Elis, part of the Peloponnesus, extending along the western coast of Arcadia, north of Messenia, and south of Achaia. Gen 10:4, 1Ch 1:7
Reciprocal: Gen 10:2 – General Gen 41:42 – fine linen Jdg 8:26 – purple Eze 27:27 – Thy riches Luk 16:19 – purple
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Eze 27:7. No ordinary material was used for sails although it might have served the purpose very well. But this city with such a “high standard” in her ambitions obtained linen that was produced in Egypt, which was of especially high quality. Smiths Bible Dictionary has the following to say of this product. “Egypt was the great center of the linen trade. Some linen, made from the Egyptian byssus, a flax that grew on the banks of the Nile, was exceedingly soft and of dazzling whiteness. (See 1Ki 10:28). Blue and purple are colors hut the expression has reference to the fabrics that were so colored. Elishah was a place supposed to have been inhabited by the descendants of a son of Javan who had that name (Gen 10:4). These fine goods and dies were obtained from this territory because they were of exceptional quality. Covered is from MEKACCEK, and a part of Strong’s definition is, an awning from the sun,”