Cotton
COTTON
Was a native product of India, and perhaps of Egypt, and is supposed to be intended in some of the passages where the English version has “fine linen.” It had been much disputed whether cotton clothe was used by the ancient Hebrews and Egyptian mummies were wrapped, proves that this material was sometimes used, especially for children. See FLAX, LINEN.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Cotton
(from the Arab name kutun), the well-known wool-like substance which envelops the seeds, and is contained within the roundish-pointed capsule or fruit of the cotton-shrub. Every one also knows that cotton has, from the earliest ages, been characteristic of India. Indeed, it has been well remarked that, as from early times sheet’s wool has been principally employed for clothing in Palestine and Syria, in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Spain, hemp in the northern countries of Europe, and flax in Egypt, so cotton has always been employed for the same purpose in India, and silk in China. In the present day, cotton, by the aid of machinery, has been manufactured in this country on so extensive a scale, and sold at so cheap a rate, as to drive the manufactures of India almost entirely out of the market. But still, until a very recent period, the calicoes and chintzes of India formed very extensive articles of commerce from that country to Europe. For the investigation of the early history of cotton, we are chiefly indebted to the earliest notices of this commerce; before adducing these, however, we may briefly notice the particular plants and countries from which cotton is obtained. India possesses two very distinct species: 1. Gossypium herbaceum of botanists, of which there are several varieties, some of which have spread north, and also into the south of Europe, and into Africa. 2. Gossypium arboreum, or cotton-tree, which is little cultivated on account of its small produce, but which yields a fine kind of cotton. This must not be confounded, as it often is, with the silk-cotton tree, or Bomntyx heptaphyllum, which does not yield a cotton fit for spinning. Cotton from these kinds is now chiefly cultivated in Central India, from whence it is carried to and exported from Broach. It is also largely cultivated in the districts of the Bombay Presidency, as also in that of Madras, but less in Bengal, except for home manufacture, which of course requires a large supply, where so large a population are all clothed in cotton. American cotton is obtained from two entirely distinct species Gossypisum Barbadense, of which different varieties yield the Sea Island, Upland, Georgian, and the New Orleans cottons; while G. Peruvianum yields the Brazil, Pernambuco, and other South American cottons. These species are original natives of America. The Gossypiusm herbaceum, a figure of which is annexed, is probably the species known to the ancients. (See Penny Cyclopaedia, s.v. Gossypium.)
This substance is no doubt denoted by the term , karpas’ (whence Gr. , Lat. carbasus, from Sanscr. karpas), of Est 1:6, which the A. V. renders green (Sept. , Vulg. carbasinus). There is considerable doubt, however, whether under , saesh, in the earlier, and , buts, in the later books of the O.T. rendered in the A. V. white linen, fine linen, etc., cotton may not have been included as well. Both these latter terms are said by Gesenius to be from roots signifying originally mere whiteness; a sense said also to inhere in the word , bad, used sometimes instead of, and sometimes together with shesh to mean the fabric. In Eze 27:7; Eze 27:16, shesh is mentioned as imported into Tyre from Egypt, and buts as from Syria. Each is found in turn coupled with (argamon’), in the sense of purple and fine linen, i.e. the most showy and costly apparel (comp. Pro 21:22, with Est 8:15). The dress of the Egyptian priests, at any rate in their ministrations, was without doubt of linen (Herod. 2:37), in spite of Pliny’s assertion (19, 1, 2) that they preferred cotton. Yet cotton garments for the worship of the temples is said to be mentioned on the Rosetta stone (Wilkinson, Anc. Eg. 3. 117). The same was the case with the Jewish ephod and other priestly attire, in which we cannot suppose any carelessness to have prevailed. If, however, a Jew happened to have a piece of cotton cloth, he probably would not be deterred by any scruple about the heterogenea of Deu 22:2, from wearing that and linen together. There is, however, no word for the cotton plant (like for flax) in the Hebrew, nor any reason to suppose that there was any early knowledge of the fabric in Palestine. SEE LINEN.
The Egyptian mummy swathings also, many of which are said to remain as good as when fresh from the loom, are decided, after much controversy and minute analysis, to have been of linen, and not cotton (Egypt. Antiq. in the Lib. Of Entertaining Knowl. 2:182). The very difficulty of deciding, however, shows how easily even scientific observers may mistake, and, much more, how impossible it would have been for ancient popular writers to avoid confusion. Even Greek naturalists sometimes clearly include cotton under . The same appears to be true of , , and the whole class of words signifying white textile vegetable fabrics. From the proper Oriental name for the article karpas, with which either their Alexandrian or Parthian intercourse might familiarize them, the Latins borrowed carbasus, completely current in poetical use in the golden and silver period of Latinity, for sails, awnings, etc. Varro knew of tree-wool on the authority of Ctesias contemporary with Herodotus. The Greeks, through the commercial consequences of Alexander’s conquests, must have known of cotton cloth, and more or less of the plant. Amasis indeed (about B.C. 540) sent as a present from Egypt a corset ornamented with gold and tree-wool ( , Herod. 3, 47), which Pliny says was still existing in his time in a temple in Rhodes, and that the minuteness of its fibre had provoked the experiments of the curious. Cotton was manufactured and worn extensively in Egypt, but extant monuments give no proof of its growth, as in the case of flax, in that country (Wilkinson, ut sup. p. 116-139, and plate No. 356); indeed, had it been a general product, we could scarcely have missed finding some trace of it in the monumental details of ancient Egyptian arts, trades, etc.; but especially when Pliny (A.D. 115) asserts that cotton was then grown in Egypt, a statement confirmed by Julius Pollux (a century later), we can hardly resist the inference that, at least as a curiosity and as an experiment, some plantations existed there. This is the more likely, since we find the cotton-tree (Gossypium arboreum, less usual than, and distinct from, the cotton plant, Gossyp. herbac.) mentioned still by Pliny as the only remarkable tree of the adjacent Ethiopia; and since Arabia, on its other side, appears to have known cotton from time immemorial, to grow it in abundance, and in parts to be highly favorable to that product. In India, however, we have the earliest records of the use of cotton for dress, of which, including the starching of it, some curious traces are found as early as 800 B.C., in the Institutes of enu; also (it is said, on the authority of Prof. Wilson) in the Rig-Veda, 105, v. 8. (For these and some other curious antiquities of the subject, see Royle’s Culture and Conmmerce of Cotton in India, p. 117-122.)
Cotton is now both grown and manufactured in various parts of Syria and Palestine, and, owing probably to its being less conductive of heat, seems preferred for turbans and shirts to linen; but there is no proof that, till they came in contact with Persia, the Hebrews generally knew of it as a distinct fabric from linen, whilst the negative proof of language and the probabilities of fact offer a strong presumption that, if they obtained it at all in commerce, they confounded it with linen under the terms shesh or buts. The greater cleanliness and durability of linen probably established its superiority over cotton for sepulchral purposes in the N.T. period, by which time the latter must have been commonly known, and thus there is no reason for assigning cotton as the material of the linen clothes () of which we read. (For the whole subject, see Yates’s Textrinum Antiquorun, pt. 1, chap. 6, and app. D.) SEE BOTANY.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Cotton (2)
(, shesh, according to Rosenmller, Alterth. IV, 1:175; comp. Tuch, Genesis page 520 sq.; later , buts, see Faber, in Harmar, 2:383; comp. Gesenius, Thesaur. page 190) was not only manufactured in Egypt into state apparel (Gen 41:42; comp. Pliny, 19:2), and in Persia into cords (Est 1:6), but the Israelites even made use of byssus cloth (Exo 26:1; Exo 27:9) and clothing (Exo 28:39), and the Hebrew women were accustomed to similar fabrics (Proverbs 31:32). It has also been regarded as the sumptuous apparel which only the rich were able to afford (Luk 16:19; on the byssus of the Greeks and Romans, see Celsius, 2:170,177, and Wetstein, 2:767). Nevertheless, the Hebrew shesh does not designate exclusively cotton, but also stands sometimes, like the Gr. byssus often (as the product of a tree, Philostr. Apoll. 2:20; comp. Pollux, Onom. 7:17; Strabo, 15:693; Arrian, Indic. 7), for the finest (Egyptian) white linen (certainly in Exo 39:28; comp. Exo 28:42; Lev 16:4; see Pliny, 19:2, 3), which in softness compared with cotton (Hartmann, Hebr. 3:37 sq.). Indeed, the Jewish tradition of the use of linen for sacred purposes (Bahr, Symbol. 1:264) is based altogether upon the custom of the Egyptians, whose priests were exclusively clothed in linen (Pliny, 19:1, 2; comp. Philostr. Apoll. 2:20), which it has likewise been contended was the ancient byssus (Rosellini, Mon. 104:1, 341; comp. Becker, Chariik. 333 sq.). In fine, the Orientals often employed a single term to designate both cotton and linen, but Celsius was wrong when he insisted (Hierobot. 2:259 sq., 167 sq.) that shesh stands only for (fine) linen (see Faber, in Harmar, 2:380 sq.; Hartmann, Hebr. 3:34 sq.). The same ambiguity that thus applies to is also found in the use of (chur, Est 1:6; Est 8:15; Sept. ), by which perhaps cotton is, after all, intended. See generally J.R. Forster, De bysso antiquor. (Lond. 1776); Smith’s Dict. of Class. Antiq. s.v. Byssus; Egypt. Antiq. in the Lib. of Entertaining Knowl. 2:182192; Penny Cyclopaedia, s.v. Cotton, Gossypium. SEE COTTON.
3. BAD (, perhaps from its separation for sacred uses) occurs Exo 28:42; Exo 39:28; Lev 6:10; Lev 16:4; Lev 16:23; Lev 16:32; 1Sa 2:18; 2Sa 6:14; 1Ch 15:27, Eze 9:2-3; Eze 9:11; Eze 10:2; Eze 10:6-7; Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6-7, in all which passages it is rendered “linen” in the Auth. Vers. It is uniformly applied to the sacred vestments (e.g. drawers, mitre, ephod, etc.) of the priests, or (in the passages in Ezekiel and Daniel) of an angel (comp. Joh 20:12; Act 1:20). In these last instances it is in the plural, , baddim’, in the concrete sense of clothes of this material, Sept. in the Pent. invariably , but in 1 Chronicles . It is well known that the official garments of the Egyptian (as of the Brahmin) priests were always of linen (Rosenmller. Bot. of the Bible, page 175), and hence the custom among the Hebrews (compare Eze 44:17, where the sacred apparel is expressly described as the product of flax, ). Celsius, however, is of opinion (Hierobot. 2:509) that bad does not signify the common linen, as some have imagined, but the finest and best Egyptian linen; and he quotes (page 510) Aben-Ezra as asserting that bad is the same as buts, namely, a species of linen in Egypt. With this view Gesenius concurs (Thesaur. Heb. page 179). The Talmudists appear to have been of the same opinion, from their fanciful etymology of the term bad as of a plant with a single stem springing upright from the earth from one seed (Braun, De vest. sacerd. page 101). This interpretation is finally confirmed by the Arabic versions, which have a term equivalent to bysstus. See No. 1 above. Perhaps, however, the requirement of the material in question for priestly garments may only signify that no wool should be employed in them, and they may therefore have consisted indifferently of either linen or cotton, provided it was entirely pure, and thus be represented by the equivocal term byssus. See No. 2 above.
4. SHESH (, prob. from the Egyptian sheush, in ancient Egyptian cheuti. i.e., linen, Bunsen, AEg. 1:606, which the Hebrews appear to have imitated as if from , to be white; Sept. everywhere ) occurs Gen 41:42; Exo 25:4; Exo 26:1; Exo 26:31; Exo 26:36; Exo 27:9; Exo 27:16; Exo 27:18; Exo 28:5-6; Exo 28:8; Exo 28:15; Exo 28:39; Exo 35:6; Exo 35:23; Exo 35:25; Exo 35:35; Exo 36:8; Exo 36:35; Exo 36:37; Exo 38:9; Exo 38:16; Exo 38:18; Exo 38:23; Exo 39:2-3; Exo 39:5; Exo 39:8; Exo 39:27-29; Pro 31:22; Eze 16:10; Eze 16:13; Eze 27:7; in all which passages it is rendered “fine linen” in the Auth. Vers. (except Pro 31:22, where it is rendered “silk;” in Est 1:6; Son 5:15, the same term occurs, but is rendered, as it there signifies, “marble”); once SHESHI (, from the same), Eze 16:13, text, “fine linen.” This word appears to designate Egyptian linen of peculiar whiteness and fineness, and as such it is stated to have been imported from Egypt by way of Tyre (Eze 27:7), in distinction from the Syrian linen or buts (, Eze 27:16). In the Pentateuch it is several times applied to byssus, of which, both as material spontaneously offered (Exo 25:4; Exo 35:6; Exo 35:23) and as woven fabrics (Exo 35:25; Exo 35:35; Exo 38:23), were made both the curtains and veils of the sacred tabernacle (Exo 26:1; Exo 26:31; Exo 26:36; Exo 27:9; Exo 27:16; Exo 27:18; Exo 36:8; Exo 36:35; Exo 36:37; Exo 38:9; Exo 38:16; Exo 38:18), and the priestly garments, especially the high- priest’s ephod or shoulder-piece (Exo 28:5-6; Exo 28:8; Exo 28:15; Exo 28:39; Exo 29:2; Exo 29:5; Exo 29:8; Exo 29:27-29). Raiment of this description is stated to have been worn by noble persons besides priests, e.g. by Joseph as prefect of Egypt (Gen 41:42), and women of eminence (Pro 31:22). But that shesh is also spoken of linen articles is apparent from Exo 39:28, where the “linen breeches” ( ) are said to have been made “of fine-twined linen” ( ), as well as from the fact that , pishtim, linen garments, are sometimes (e.g. Isa 43:17; Eze 44:18) rendered by the Chaldee interpreter by , buts. It thus appears that shesh is equivalent in general to byssus. See No. 2 above. See generally Celsius, Hierobot. 2:259; J.R. Forster, Liber singularis de bysso antiquorum (London, 1776); J.E. Faber, Observat. 2:282 sq.; Hartmann, Hebrierin, 3:34 sq.; Rosenmller, Bibl. Alterth. IV, 1:175 sq.
5. CHR (, from its whiteness) occurs Est 1:6; Est 8:15, where the Auth. Version renders “white,” Sept. , besides other passages where it signifies a “hole” (Isa 11:8; Isa 42:22, etc.); once , chor, plural poet. , Isa 19:9 (Auth. Vers. “net-works.” Sept. , Vulg. subtilia, Kimchi white garments). This term likewise appears to designate fine and white linen, or in general byssus, although Saadias and other interpreters understand silk (see Schroder, De Vest. Mul. Heb. pages 40, 245). See No. 2 above.
6. ETUN’ (, from an obsolete root perhaps signifying to bind, referring to the use of the material for ropes) occurs only in Pro 7:16, as a product of Egypt, “I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.” As Egypt was from very early times celebrated for its cultivation of flax and manufactures of linen, there can be little doubt that etun is correctly rendered, though some have thought that it may signify rope or string of Egypt, “funis AEgyptius,” “funis salignus v. intubaceus;” a sense that it bears in Chaldee, for the Targums employ in the sense of rope for the Heb. and (Jos 2:15; Num 4:32; 1Ki 20:32; Est 1:6, etc.). But, following the suggestion of Alb. Schultens, Celsius (Hierobot. 2, page 89) observes that etun designates not a rope, but flax and linen, as even the Greek and , derived from it, sufficiently demonstrate. “So Mr. Yates, in his Textrinzun Antiquorum, page 265, says of that ‘it was in all probability an Egyptian word, adopted by the Greeks to denote the commodity to which the Egyptians themselves applied it.’ For ; put into Greek letters and with Greek terminations, becomes and . Hesychius states, no doubt correctly, ‘that was applied by the Greeks to any fine and thin cloth, though not of linen.’ Mr. Yates further adduces from ancient scholia that were made both of flax and of wool, and also that the silks of India are called by the author of the Perijplus of the Erythrcean Sea. It also appears that the name was applied to cloths exported from Cutch, Ougein, and Baroach, and which must have been made of cotton. Mr. Yates moreover observes that, though , lile , originally denoted linen, yet we find them both applied to cotton cloth. As the manufacture of linen extended itself into other countries, and as the exports of India became added to those of Egypt, all varieties, either of linen or cotton cloth, wherever woven, came to be designated by the originally Egyptian names asnd .” Forster (De bysso antiquor. page 75) endeavors to trace the Egyptian form of the word. and Ludolf (Comment. ad hist. AEthiop. page 204) renders it by the Ethiopic term for franskincense. But these efforts, as Gesenius remarks (Thesaur. Heb. page 77), are wide of the mark. Among the Hebrews the term “thread of Egypt” ( ) may properly have designated a linen or even cotton material, similar to silk or byssus in fineness, such as we know was manufactured in Egypt (Isa 19:9; Eze 27:7; Barhebr. page 218), q.d. Egyptian yarn, not less famous among the ancients than “Turkish yarn” has been among moderns. Kimchi, the Venetian Greek, and others understand funiculum, and apply it to cords hanging from the side of a bed, or something of that sort; rabbi Parchon, a girdle woven in Egypt evidently mere conjectures.
“In the N.T. the word occurs in Joh 19:40 : ‘Then took they the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes’ (); in the parallel passage (Mat 27:59) the term used is , as also in Mar 15:46, and in Luk 23:53. We meet with it again in Joh 20:5, ‘and he, stooping down, saw the linen clothes lying.’ It is generally used in the plural to denote ‘linen bandages.’ , its primitive, occurs in Act 10:11, ‘and (Peter) saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth.’ and also in 11:5, where this passage is repeated.” In Homer it signifies either the natriae (Odys. 7:107), or wrought veils and under- garments for women (11. 3:141; 18:195); in later writers linen cloths (Lucilius, Dial. Mort. 3:2), especially for sails (Mel. 80; Anth. 10:5; Luc. Jup. Tramg. 46). From the preceding observations it is evident that , whether answering to the Heb. etun or not, may signify cloth made either of linen or cotton, but most probably the former, as it was more common than cotton in Syria and Egypt. In classical writers the word signifies linen bandages (Luc. Philops. 34), espec. lint for wounds (Hipp. page 772, etc.; Ar. Ach. 1176); also sail-cloth (Polybus, 5:89, 2; Dem. 1145, 6). SEE COTTON; also Nos. 7 and 10 below.
7. SADIN’ (, from an obsolete root signifying to loosen or let down a garment, as a veil) occurs in Jdg 14:12-13 (where the Auth. Vers. has “sheets,” margin “shirts”), and Pro 31:24; Isa 3:23 (A. Vers. “fine linen”). From these passages it appears to have been an ample garment, probably of linen, worn under the other clothing in the manner of a shirt by men (Jdg 14:12-13), or as a thin chemise by women (Isa 3:23). The Talmud describes it as made of the finest linen (“the sindon is suitable for summer,” Menach. 41:1). The Targums similarly explain Psa 104:2; Lam 2:20. The corresponding Syriac is employed in the Peshito for , Luk 19:20; , Joh 13:4. The Sept. has , Vulgate sindo; but in Isa 3:23 the Sept. appears to have a paraphrase . The passage in Proverbs seems to refer to the manufacture of the cloth or material, probably linen, but possibly sometimes of cotton; in Judges shirts or male under-apparel are evidently referred to; and in Isaiah we may infer that female under-clothing is in like manner alluded to.
From this Heb. term many have thought is derived the Greek word , which occurs of linen or muslin cloth, e.g. a loose garment worn at night instead of the day-clothes, q.d. night-gown (Mar 14:51-52, “linen cloth”); used also for wrapping around dead bodies, q.d. grave- clothes, cerements (“fine linen,” Mar 15:46; “linen cloth,” Mat 27:59; “linen,” Mar 15:46; Luk 23:53). This appears to have been a fine fabric (probably usually, but not necessarily of linen), either the Egyptian (Pollux, 7:16, 72) or Indian; called in Egypt senter (Peyron, page 299), the Sanscrit sindhu (Jablonski, Opusc. 1:297 sq.). Others trace a connection with , Sind (Passow, Lex. s.v.); some (as Etymol. Mag.) from the city Sidon, etc. It appears to have specially denoted a fine cotton cloth from India (Herod. 1:200; 2:95; 3:86; 7:181) ; also generally a linen cloth, used as a signal (Polyb. 2:66, 10), for surgeons’ bandages (Herod. 7:181), for mummy-cloth (Herod. 2:86), or other purposes (Sophocles, Ant. 1222; Thuc. 2:49). This word is therefore not decisive as to the material. See Schroder, De Vest. Mul. page 339; Michaelis, Suppl. 1720; Wetstein, N.T. 1:631. Gesenius, Thes. Heb. s.v.
8. KARPAS (, Sept. ,Vulg. carbassinus) “occurs in the book of Esther (1:6), in the description of the hangings ‘in the court of the garden of the king’s palace,’ at the time of the great feast given in the city Shushan, or Susan, by Ahasuerus, who ‘reigned from India even unto Ethiopia.’ We are told that there were white, green, and blue hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble. Karpas is translated green in our version, on the authority, it is said, ‘of the Chaldee paraphrase,’ where it is interpreted leek-green. Rosenmller and others derive the Hebrew word from the Arabic kurufs, which signifies ‘garden parsley,’ Apium petroselinum, as if it alluded to the green color of this plant; at the same time arguing that as ‘the word karpas is placed before two other words which undoubtedly denote colors, viz. the white and the purple-blue, it probably also does the same.’ But if two of the words denote colors, it would appear a good reason why the third should refer to the substance which was colored. This, there is little doubt, is what was intended.
If we consider that the occurrences related took place at the Persian court at a time when it held sway as far as India, and that the account is by some supposed to have been originally written in the ancient language of Persia, we may suppose that some foreign words may have been introduced to indicate even an already well-known substance; but more especially so if the substance itself was then first made known to the Hebrews. The Hebrew karpas is very similar to the Sanscrit kaspasum, karpasa, or karpase, signifying the cotton-plant, whence the Armen. kierbas, and the Greek , , etc. (Asiat. Researches, 4:231, Calcutta). Celsius (Hierobot. 1:159) states that the Arabs and Persians have kallphas and kirbas as names for cotton. These must no doubt be derived from the Sanscrit, while the word karpas is now applied throughout India to cotton with the seed, and may even be seen in English prices-current. occurs in the Periplus of Arrian, who states (page 165) that the region about the Gulf of Barygaze, in India, was productive of carpasus, and of the fine Indian muslins made of it. The word is no doubt derived from the Sanscrit karpasa, and, though it has been translated fine muslin by Dr. Vincent, it may mean cotton cloths, or calico in general. Mr. Yates, in his recently published and valuable work, Textrinun Antiquorum, states that the earliest notice of this Oriental name in any classical author which he has met with is the line ‘Catrbasina, molochina, ampelina’ of Caecilius Statius, who died B.C. 169. Mr. Yates infers that as this poet translated from the Greek, so the Greeks must have made use of muslins or calicoes, etc., which were brought from India as early as 200 years B.C. See his work, as well as that of Celsius, for numerous quotations from classical authors, where carbasus occurs; proving that not only the word, but the substance which it indicated, was known to the ancients subsequent to this period. It might, indeed must, have been known long before to the Persians, as constant communication took place by caravans between the north of India and Persia, as has been clearly shown by Haeren. Cotton was known to Ctesias. who lived so long at the Persian court. Pliny describes it as a Spanish article (Nat. H. 19:1), but other ancient writers call it a product of India and the East (Strabo, 14:719; Curtius, 8:9).
Nothing can be more suitable than cotton, white and blue, in the above passage of Esther, as J.F. Royle long since (1837) remarked in a note in his Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, page 145: ‘Hanging curtains made with calico, usually in stripes of different colors and padded with cotton, called purdahs, are employed throughout India as a substitute for doors.’ They may be seen used for the very purposes mentioned in the text in the court of the king of Delhi’s palace, where, on a paved mosaic terrace, rows of slender pillars support a light roof, from which hang by rings immense padded and striped curtains, which may be rolled up or removed at pleasure. These either increase light or ventilation, and form, in fact, a kind of movable wall to the building, which is used as one of the halls of audience. This kind of structure was probably introduced by the Persian conquerors of India, and therefore may serve to explain the object of the colonnade in front of the palace in the ruins of Persepolis.” See Abulplarag. Hist. dynast. page 433; Salmasius, Homonym. c. 81; Celsius, Hierobot. 2:157; Schroder, De. Vest. Mul. page 108 sq. SEE COTTON.
9. SHAATNEZ (), a kind of garments woven of two sorts of thread, linen and wool, like the Greek , Eng. linsey- woolsey, which the Hebrews were forbidden to use, as appears from the two passages in the Mosaic law where the word occurs: Lev 19:19, “Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee;” Deu 22:11,” Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of linen and woolen together.” In the former of these passages the term Shaatnez is interpreted by , a garment of two different kinds, i.e. of heterogeneous materials; and in the latter by the explicit definition, , of wool and flax threads together. The Sept. renders , i.e., adulterated; Aquila, , i.e., various, of different sorts; the Peshito and Samaritan, variegated. Other ancient interpreters have either retained the original word, as Onkelos, or have entirely neglected it, as the Vulg., usually introducing the interpretation from Deuteronomy into Levit., as the Venetian Greek (), Saadias, the Armenian, Erpenius, and the Persic. The derivation is uncertain. The early etymologists have sought in vain a Samar. origin for the word, as Bochart (Hieroz. 1:545). The Talmud gives only fanciful derivations (Mishna, Kilain, 9:8; comp. Nidda, 61 b; Buxtorf, Lex. Talin. s.v.; Abr. Geiger. Lehrbuch d. Mischnah, 2:75); and the Targums are little better (see Pseudojon. in Deuteronomy ad loc.). Ernest Meyer proposes the signification gradually formed, from a transposition of the letters and comparison with the Arabic and Ethiopic (Lex rad. Heb. page 686). The word is prob. of Egyptian origin, although Forster (De bysso antiquorurm, page 95) and Jablonski (Opusc. 1:294 sq.) have not fully succeeded in tracing its original in the Coptic, which language, however, furnishes the nearest etvmolu (see Peyron, Lexicon, s.v. ). SEE WOOLLEN.
10. MIKVESH’ (, a collection, as often) occurs only in connection with this subject in 1Ki 10:28, “And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn; the king’s merchants received the linen yarn at a price;” also 2Ch 1:16, where the same language occurs. In these passages it evidently signifies a company of horses, i.e., a drove or string, as brought from Egypt at a fixed valuation. The Sept. in most copies renders or , otherwise , as in 2 Chronicles; the Vulg. has Coa in both places, as a proper name, referring. as some have thought, to Michoe (Pliny, 6:29), the country of the Troglodytes (see Calmet, Dict. s.v. Coa). Others have sought less direct elucidations (see Bochart, lsieroz. 1:171, 172; Lud. de Dieu, ad loc.; Clericus and Dathe On Kings, ad loc.; Becke, Paraphr. Chald. ad Chron., ad loc., page 7; Michaelis, Supplenm. 1271, and In Jure Mosaico. 3:332; Bottcher, Specim. page 170). But of these far-fetched explanations there is no occasion; the passages simply refer to a caravan of horse-merchants carrying on the commerce of Solomon with Egypt (see Taylor, Fragments, No. 190).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Cotton
Karpas. KJV has “green” (Est 1:6), where “cotton” ought to be; for kurpasa in Sanskrit and kindred terms of other eastern languages means “cotton.” Cotton was manufactured, though not grown, anciently in Egypt. In India is the earliest record of its use for dress.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Cotton
COTTON is the better tr. [Note: translate or translation.] (so RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ) of karpas, which in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] and RV [Note: Revised Version.] is tr. [Note: translate or translation.] green, Est 1:6. It was either muslin or calico.
E. W. G. Masterman.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Cotton
kot’n (, karpas is the better translation, as in the Revised Version, margin, where the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) have green in Est 1:6): The Hebrew karpas is from the Persian kirpas and the Sanskrit karpasa, the cotton plant. The derived words originally meant muslin or calico, but in classical times the use of words allied to karpas – in Greek and Latin – was extended to include linen. The probability is in favor of cotton in Est 1:6. This is the product of Gossypium herbaceum, a plant originally from India but now cultivated in many other lands.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Cotton
Cotton is well known to be a wool-like substance which envelopes the seeds, and is contained within the roundish-pointed capsule or fruit of the cotton-shrub. Everyone also knows that cotton has, from the earliest ages, been characteristic of India. But in the present day cotton, by the aid of machinery, has been manufactured in this country on so extensive a scale, and sold at so cheap a rate, as to have driven the manufacture of India almost entirely out of the market. Still, however, until a very recent period, the calicoes and chintzes of India formed very extensive articles of commerce from that country to Europe. India possesses two very distinct species of plants from which cotton is obtained: 1. K. Gossipium herbaceum of botanists, of which there are several varieties, some of which have spread north, and also into the south of Europe, and into Africa. 2. Gossipium arboreum, or cotton-tree, which is little cultivated on account of its small produce, but which yields a fine kind of cotton. This must not be confounded, as it often is, with the silk-cotton tree, or Bombyx heptaphyllum, which does not yield a cotton fit for spinning. Cotton is now chiefly cultivated in Central India, from whence it is carried to and exported from Broach. It is also largely cultivated in the districts of the Bombay Presidency, as also in that of Madras, but less in Bengal, except for home manufacture, which of course requires a large supply, where so large a population are all clothed in cotton. The supplies of cotton which we derive from America are obtained from two entirely distinct speciesGossipium Barbadense, of which different varieties yield the Sea Island, Upland, Georgian, and the New Orleans cottons; while G. Peruvianum yields the Brazil, Pernambuco, and other South American cottons. These species are original natives of America. It is probable that cotton was imported into Egypt and known to the Hebrews, but it is extremely difficult to prove the fact: the subject has been extensively investigated, but the point is still undetermined.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Cotton
Exo 25:4
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Cotton
Cotton. Cotton is now both grown and manufactured in various parts of Syria and Palestine; but there is no proof that, till they came in contact with Persia, the Hebrews generally knew of it as a distinct fabric from linen. See Linen.