Glass, Looking-Glass, Mirror
Glass, Looking-Glass, Mirror
GLASS, LOOKING-GLASS, MIRROR.This indispensable article of a ladys toilet is first met with in Exo 38:8, where the laver of brass and its base are said to have been made of the mirrors (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] looking-glasses) of the serving women which served at the door of the tent of meeting (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). This passage shows that the mirrors of the Hebrews, like those of the other peoples of antiquity, were made of polished bronze, as is implied in the comparison, Job 37:18, of the sky to a molten mirror (RV [Note: Revised Version.] and AV [Note: Authorized Version.] looking-glass). A different Hebrew word is rendered hand mirror by RV [Note: Revised Version.] in the list of toilet articles, Isa 3:23. The fact that this word denotes a writing tablet in Isa 8:1 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) perhaps indicates that in the former passage we have an oblong mirror in a wooden frame. The usual shape, however, of the Egyptian (see Wilkinson, Anc. Egyp. ii. 350 f. with illust.), as of the Greek, hand-mirrors was round or slightly oval. As a rule they were furnished with a tang, which fitted into a handle of wood or metal, often delicately carved. Two specimens of circular mirrors of bronze, one 5 inches, the other 41/2, in diameter, have recently been discovered in Philistine (?) graves at Gezer (PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1905, 321; 1907, 199 with illusts.).
In the Apocrypha there is a reference, Sir 12:11, to the rust that gathered on these metal mirrors, and in Wis 7:26 the Divine wisdom is described as the unspotted mirror of the power of God, the only occurrence in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] of mirror, which RV [Note: Revised Version.] substitutes for glass throughout. The NT references, finally, are those by Paul (1Co 13:12, 2Co 3:18) and by James (Jam 1:23). For the sea of glass (RV [Note: Revised Version.] glassy sea) of Rev 4:6; Rev 15:2 see art. Sea of Glass.
A. R. S. Kennedy.