4Ô WFRR EW LIFE AND CUSTOM
injunction to bind certain commandments on the hand
and to write them upon the door-posts and on the gates ɪ
may be metaphorical, meaning that Jehovah’s teaching
written on the heart is to take the place of amulets bound
on the arm and of magic formulae inscribed on door-posts
and gates.2
On the feet were worn sandals, or perhaps shoes which
covered merely the front part of the foot.3 These were
fastened by a thong.* They were usually of simple con-
struction, a ‘ pair of shoes ’ being a proverbial expression
for something of little value.5
Considerable attention seems to have been given to
hairdressing. Some sort of elaborate coiffure seems to be
referred to in Isaiah’s threat to the Jerusalem ladies of the
fate in store for them.6 The point is that that which they
regard as an adornment will be shorn off when they are
sold as slaves. There was a fashion (condemned as foreign
and heathenish)’ to clip the hair short on the temples and,
in the case of men, the corner of the beard also. If we
may take Absalom as an example of what was usual, men
had their hair cut from time to time.8 It is, however, im-
possible to accept as accurate the weight of his yearly
growth of hair ! Two hundred shekels must be equivalent
to nearly three pounds and three quarters—enough to stuff
a very large sofa-pillow. In the days of the monarchy and
even later the head was shaved in mourning.’ Shaving
the hair on the forehead is forbidden in the Deuteronomic
law,10 but it cannot safely be argued that this law refers
* Deut. vi. 8, 9.
a Compare the similar metaphor in Ps. cxli. 2.
3 Deut. xxv. xσ; Joshua ix. 5. 4 Gen. xiv. 23; Isa. v. 27.
5 Amos ii. 6, viii. 6 ; of. ɪ Sam. xii. 3 (LXX).
t Isa. iii. 24. For the reading pothfhên of the Massoretic text we
should probably rcadff'atbfhen, which we may perhaps translate t their
shingled hair ’.
7 Lev. xix. 27 ; Jer. ix. 25 (E.V. υer. 26). ’ 2 Sam. xiv. 26.
s Mic. i. ι6 ; Isa. xv. 2, xxii. 12 ; Job i. 20 ; Ezek. vii. ι8 ; Jer. xvi.
6, xli. 5, xlviii. 37. “ Deut. xiv. ɪ.
SANDALS, HAIRDRESSING 49
to a very limited shaving of the head, for it is associated
with a prohibition of laceration of the flesh in mourning,
and this latter injunction was certainly not enforced before
the exile.1 It would seem that in general men left their
heads uncovered, except in mourning.2 This may be in-
ferred not only from actual references to the covering of
the head in mourning, but from other indications also.
How could a hoary head be generally regarded as a crown
of glory,3 if it were always covered ? Moreover the anoint-
ing of the head * with oil implies that the head to which
the unction is applied is bare. Men of rank, however,
laymen as well as priests, appear to have worn some
sort of turban or headband,5 which was also worn by
women.6
A large number of articles pertaining to ladies’ dress
and adornment are enumerated in Isa. iii. In regard to
many of these, however, we have no guide to the meaning
except etymology, and etymology in such a connexion may
well prove an ignis fatuus. It would be interesting to see
the conclusions at which an expert etymologist would
arrive, if with nothing to guide him but etymology he
attempted to interpret a catalogue of an Oxford Street or
Regent Street drapery firm ! Mention may be made of the
common practice among women of blackening the edges
of the eyelids to increase the apparent brilliancy of the
eyes.7 Jezebel has frequendy been blamed unjustly for
what in her days, for a woman in her position, was de
rigueur. In fairness to her memory let it be said that
nothing so became her in life as the dignified and courage-
ous way in which she left it.
Although in Old Testament times women in general
were freer and held a higher position than under Islam, as
ɪ Jer. xvi. 6, xli. 5, xlviii. 37.
* 2 Sam. xv. 30 ; Jer. xiv. 3, 4; Esther vi. 12.
3 Prov. xvi. 31 ; cf. xx. 29. 4 Ps. xxiii. 5.
5 Ezek. xxiii. 15, xxiv. 17, xliv. ι8 ; Isa. Ixii. 3 ; cf. xxviii. 5.
6 Isa. iii. 20, 23. 7 2 Kings ix. 30 ; Jer. iv. 30.