51 



Dr. Wm. Scott, in his Dictionary of the Bible, 1860, in a 

 considerable article on Colours says : — " Among the Jews, who 

 fell even below their contemporaries in the cultivation of the 

 fine arts and to whom painting was unknown until a later 

 period, the knowledge of artificial colours was very restricted. 

 The highest development of colour in the mind of 

 the Hebrew was light and hence the preponderance given to 

 white. . . . Next to white, black, or rather dark, holds 

 the most prominent place. . . . Red was a colour of which 

 the Jews had a vivid conception. . . . Yellow is very seldom 

 noticed ; it was apparently regarded as a shade of green. . . . 

 Green is frequently noticed, but an examination of the passages 

 in which it occurs will show that the reference is seldom to 

 colour but applies to what is vifjorotis, fiouruhing, out-spreading, 

 sproutimj, freslt, young, moist, sappy and unripe. Thus it may 

 be said that green is never used in the Bible to convey the im- 

 pression of a proper colour." 



Besides white and black, I find on reference to Cruden's 

 Concordance that the following colours are mentioned in the 

 Old Testament so many times : — 



Magnus has sought in ancient descriptions of the rainbow 

 a support for his theory and naturally makes out a good case. 

 Homer (? 1000 e.g.), he thinks, dealt with it as one-coloured, 

 red or purple ; the ancient Arabs described it as red ; Ezekiel 

 (588 B.C.), Chap. I., v. 28, says it has an appearance of brightness ; 

 Xenophanes (? 550 b.c.) sees three colours in the bow — red, blue, 

 and yellow-green ; Aristotle (384 b.c.) is for a tricolour ; Ovid 

 (43 B.C.) is vague ; Seneca (b.c.-a.d.), ditto ; Suedas and Galen 

 (36 A.D.) support the triad of colours and so do the Eastern and 

 later Arabian literatures. 



