Silk
SILK
In the time of the Ptolemies, came to Greece and Rome from the far east of China, etc., by the way of Alexandria, and was sold for its weight in gold. It sometimes came in the form of skeins, and was woven into a light and thin gauze. It is mentioned in Jer 18:12, and probably in Eze 16:10,13 . In Gen 41:42 and Pro 31:22, the word rendered silk in our version is the same that is elsewhere correctly rendered fine linen. It is not known how early or extensively the Jews used it.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Silk
Silk, the fibrous substance produced by the mulberry silk-moth of China, is mentioned (Rev 18:12) as part of the costly merchandise of Babylon (Imperial Rome). The Chinese name of the silk-worm is si, Korean soi; to the Greeks it became known as , the people supplying it being the , and the fibre itself , whence Lat. sericum, Fr. soie, Ger. Seide, Eng. silk. The silk-worm is first mentioned in Western literature by Aristotle (de Anim. Hist. v. 19). The silken textures of the East began to be imported into Italy in the early days of the Empire. At first they fetched fabulous prices, and their use by men was deemed an unpardonable extravagance. At a meeting of the Senate, in the time of Tiberius, much was said against the luxury of the city by Quintus Haterius, a man of consular rank, and by Octavius Fronto, formerly praetor; and a law was passed against using vessels of solid gold in serving up repasts, and against men disgracing themselves with silken garments (Tac. Ann. ii. 33). The trade, however, grew. Elagabalus was the first Emperor who wore robes of silk. Aurelian complained that a pound of it cost 12 ounces of gold. Under Justinian the Western world at last received from China a supply of silk-worms eggs (E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, iv. [1902], ch. xl 3).
James Strahan.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Silk
The only undoubted notice of this material in the canonical Bible occurs in Rev 18:12, where it is mentioned () among the treasures of the typical Babylon. So also in 1Ma 4:23, in the enumeration of the spoil obtained from. the Syrians by Judas. It is, however, in the highest degree probable that the texture was known to the Hebrews from the time that their commercial relations. were extended by Solomon. For, though we have no historical evidence of the importation of the raw material to the shores. of the Mediterranean earlier than that. of Aristotle (Hist. Anim 5, 19) in the 4th century B.C., yet that notice, referring as it does to the island of Cos, would justify the assumption that it had been known at a far earlier period in Western Asia. The commercial routes of that continent are of the highest antiquity, and an indirect testimony to the existence of a trade with China in the age of Isaiah is probably afforded us in his reference to the Sinir (q.v.).
The well known classical name of the substance (, sericum) does not occur in the Hebrew language, although Calmet conjectured that , serikoth (Isa 19:9, A.V. fine) was connected with sericum. But the absence of the mention of silk in the Old Test. may be accounted for partly on the ground that the Hebrews were acquainted only with the texture, and not with the raw material, and partly on the supposition that the name sericum reached the Greeks by another channel, viz. through Armenia. The Hebrew terms which have been supposed to refer to silk are , meshi, and , demeshek. The former occurs only in Eze 16:10; Eze 16:13 (A.V. silk), and is probably connected with the root mashah, to draw out, as if it were made of the finest drawn silk in the manner described by Pliny (6, 20; 11, 26); the equivalent term in the Sept. (), though connected in point of etymology with hair as its material, is, nevertheless, explained by Hesychius and Suidas as referring to silk, which may well have been described as resembling hair. (see Fuller, Miscell. 2, 11; Schroder, Vestit. Mulier. p. 324 sq.). The other term, demeshek, occurs in Amo 3:12 (A.V. Damascus), and has been supposed to refer to silk from the resemblance of the word to our damask, and of this again to Damascus, as the place where the manufacture of silken textures was carried on. It appears, however, that damask is a corruption of dimakso, a term applied by the Arabs to the raw material alone, and not to the manufactured article (Pusey, Min. Proph. p. 183), The A.V. confounds , shesh, byssus, with silk in Pro 31:22.
We must therefore consider the reference to silk as extremely dubious. (See Hartmann, Hebraerinn, 2, 126 sq.; 3, 406 sq.). We have notice of silk under its classical name ( ) in the Mishna (Kil. 9, 2), where Chinese silk is distinguished from floss silk. The value set upon silk by the Romans, as implied in Rev 18:12, is noticed by Josephus (War, 7, 5, 4); as well as by classical writers (e.g. Sueton. Caliq. 52; Mart. 11, 9). Aristotle (Hist. Anim. 5, 19) gave the first correct account of its nature by describing it as unwound from a large horned caterpillar. Notwithstanding this information, however, the most erroneous notions continued to be entertained respecting its origin; for Pliny (Hist. Nat. 11, 22) attributed it to a worm that built nests of clay and collected wax; while Virgil (Georg. 2, 121) and other authors supposed that the Seres carded the down from the leaves of plants and from flowers.
There can scarcely be a doubt that silk, the most beautiful of all the fabrics of the loom, was known and employed by the Assyrians long before the captivity of the prophet by the river Chebar. The Medes were notorious for the luxuriance and effeminacy of their costume, as is well shown in Xenophon’s copious details (Cyrop. passim). After the conquest of Babylon and the possession by the Persians of universal empire, the very quintessence of magnificence was the Median robe, which thenceforward became the dress of honor. Cyrus distributed robes to his great men, most beautiful and noble, all of the Median sort. These were made of silk; for Procopius, writing long afterwards, when the silk worm had become known in Europe, says, The robes which the Greeks used to call Median we now call silken.
The author of The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea speaks of silk in Malabar as an article imported from countries farther east, which, however, can only apply to the raw material; for in the Statues of Menu, of an antiquity far more remote, we read of silk and woollen stuffs and silken clothes (Menu, 5, 120; 12, 64); and woollen cloth, deer skins, jewels, soft silks, variously colored garments, and beautiful ornaments are enumerated as presents in the Ramayana (1, 61). Pliny, commenting on the passage in Aristotle above cited, states that silk came to Greece from Assyria and was worked up by the Grecian women; and we may fairly conclude that the rich and curious products of China, her silk and porcelain, reached the marts of Egypt, of Phoenicia, and of Greece by various routes one from the south of China through India, and thence either by sea up the Persian and Arabian gulfs or across the Indus through Persia by the great Syrian and Arabian caravans; and another by the grand route of Central Asia, by Bactra, situate on the highway of the confluence of nations, whence the opulence of Thibet, Tartary, and China was poured in a ceaseless and splendid tide of traffic through the Caspian Gates (see Heeren, Hist. Researches, passim; and Wilkinson. Anc. Egypt. 3, 107). As the dress described [in Ezekiel 16] is intended to be of the richest materials, it might well be supposed that the prophet would mention silk if silk were known to him. Silk continued to bear an astonishingly high price down to a comparatively late period.
Thus we find that silk was forbidden to be worn by men under Tiberius. When they did wear it, silk formed only part of the fabric, robes entirely of silk being left to the women. It is numbered among the most extravagant luxuries or effeminacies of Heliogabalus that he was the first man who wore a robe of entire silk; and the anecdotes are well known of the emperor M. Antoninus, who caused a silk robe which had become his property to be sold, and of the emperor Aurelian, who refused, on the ground of its extravagant cost, a silk dress which his consort earnestly requested from him. Such anecdotes have an emphasis here, where, by a figurative reference to the most rich and costly articles of dress then known, God describes the precious and glorious things with which he had invested the. people he redeemed from the bondage and misery of Egypt (Kitto, Pict. Bible, ad loc.).
The silk known to us is entirely produced by one insect, the caterpillar of a sluggish moth known as Bombyx mori, after its proper food plant, the mulberry (Morus). The larvae of other moths produce silk, and in India several species are cultivated, as the Tusseh and the Arrindy silk worms. But there is none that, can compete with the Chinese worm for the exquisite softness, gloss, and beauty of its silk, and its suitability for the finer textiles. Everyone in this country is now familiar with the history of the bombyx; with the round, flattened eggs; the gray worms which they produce which feed so voraciously on mulberry leaves, till they become plump white caterpillars, three inches long, and furnished with a little horn behind; with the oval yellow cocoons of silk which these caterpillars form around their own bodies; with the short brown pupa into which each immured caterpillar changes; and with the soft, downy, cream-colored moth with feathery antennoe that in due time emerges from the pupa, and from the cocoon if undisturbed. The mode of unwindling the cocoons and reeling off the silken thread is also familiarly known.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Silk
Heb. demeshek, “damask,” silk cloth manufactured at Damascus, Amos 3:12. A.V., “in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch;” R.V., “in the corner of a couch, and on the silken cushions of a bed” (marg., “in Damascus on a bed”).
Heb. meshi, (Ezek. 16:10, 13, rendered “silk”). In Gen. 41:42 (marg. A.V.), Prov. 31:22 (R.V., “fine linen”), the word “silk” ought to be “fine linen.”
Silk was common in New Testament times (Rev. 18:12).
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Silk
The English is derived by the change of r and l from sericum, the manufacture of the Chinese (Seres): Rev 18:12. Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. is the first who positively mentions the import of the raw material to the island Cos in the Mediterranean (H. A. 5:19). In Pro 31:22 (shesh) translated “fine linen,” not silk. The texture silk was probably known much earlier in western Asia, considering its intercourse with the far East by various routes, namely, from southern China by India and the Persian gulf, or across the Indus through Persia, or by Bactria the route of central Asia, for the SINIM (Isa 49:12) are the Chinese. Meshi, the other Hebrew term for silk, occurs in Eze 16:10; Eze 16:13, from maashah “to draw,” fine drawn silk (Pliny 6:20; 11:26, describes the manner). The Bombyx mori, the caterpillar of a sluggish moth, feeding on the mulberry tree, produces the oval-yellow cocoon of silk wound around its own body.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Silk
SILK.See Dress, 1.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Silk
In Eze 16:10; Eze 16:13 the word is meshi, and refers to some very fine substance like hair, fine silk. In Pro 31:22 it is shesh, which is fine linen. In Rev 18:12 it is , silk.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Silk
Wearing apparel made of
Pro 31:22; Eze 16:10; Eze 16:13
Merchandise of
Rev 18:12 Cotton; Linen
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Silk
Silk. The only undoubted notice of silk in the Bible occurs in Rev 18:12, where it is mentioned among the treasures of the typical Babylon. It is however, in the highest degree, probable that the texture was known to the Hebrews from the time that their commercial relations were extended by Solomon. The well-known classical name of the substance does not occur in the Hebrew language.
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Silk
“silken,” an adjective derived from the Seres, a people of India, who seem to have produced “silk” originally as a marketable commodity, is used as a noun with the article, denoting “silken fabric,” Rev 18:12.
Fuente: Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words
Silk
. As the word which is rendered silk in our version more probably meant cotton, or rather muslin, it is doubtful whether silk is mentioned expressly in the Scripture, unless, perhaps, in Isa 19:9, where we find the Hebrew word , from , yellowish, tawny; which is generally the natural colour of raw silk; hence the Latin sericum: or it may be from the Seres, a nation whence the Greeks and Romans first obtained the article silk. Calmet remarks that the ancient Greeks and Romans had but little knowledge of the nature of silk. The Seres communicated their silk to the Persians, from whom it passed to the Greeks, and from them to the Romans. But the Persians and orientals for a long time kept the secret of manufacturing it among themselves. Silk was first brought into Greece after Alexander’s conquest of Persia, and came into Italy during the flourishing times of the Roman empire; but was long so dear in all these parts as to be worth its weight in gold. At length the emperor Justinian, who died in the year 365, by means of two monks, whom he sent into India for that purpose, procured great quantities of silk worms’ eggs to be brought to Constantinople, and from these have sprung all the silk worms and all the silk trade that have been since in Europe. See FLAX.