THE FLAX. 259 



even the smoking flax, or the wick of a lamp, which, when it first 

 begins to kindle, is put out hy every little motion. With such 

 kind and condescending regards to the weakest of his people, and 

 to the first openings and symptoms of a hopeful character, shall he 

 proceed till he send forth judgment unto victory, or till he make 

 his righteous cause victorious. This place is quoted in Matt, 

 xii. 20, where, by an easy metonomy, the material for the thing 

 made, flax, is used for the wick of a lamp or taper; and that, by a 

 synecdoche for the lamp or taper itself, which, when near going 

 out, yields more smoke than light. 'He will not extinguish, or put 

 out, the dying lamp.' 



In Jer. xiii. 1, a linen girdle is mentioned ; and in Ezek. xl. 3, 

 a measuring line ofjlax. 



Our version having more than once mentioned 'the fine linen of 

 Egypt,' n umbers of people have been ready to imagine, that their 

 linen manufactures were of the most delicate kind ; whereas, in 

 truth, they were but coarse. This is proved by examining that in 

 which their embalmed bodies are found wrapped up. So Hassel- 

 quist observes: 'The ancients have said much of the fine linen of 

 Egypt; and many of our learned men imagine that it was so fine 

 and precious, that we have even lost the art, and cannot make it so 

 good. They have been induced to think so by the commen- 

 dations which the Greeks have lavished on the Egyptian linen. 

 They had good reason for doing it, for they had no flax 

 themselves, and were unacquainted with the art of weav- 

 ing: but were we to compare a piece of Holland linen with the 

 linen in which the mummies were laid, and which is of the oldest 

 and best manufacture of Egypt, we shall find that the fine linen of 

 Egypt is very coarse in comparison with what is now made. The 

 Egyptian linen was fine, and sought after by kings and princes, 

 when Egypt was the only country that cultivated flax and knew 

 how to use it.' 



Our translators have been unfortunate in this article, says Dr. 

 Harris, in supposing that one of the words might signify silk, and 

 forgetting cloth made of cotton. When Joseph was arrayed in 

 Egypt as viceroy of that country, they represent him as clothed in 

 vestures of ' fine linen' (Gen. xli. 42), but being dubious of the 

 meaning of the word there, they render it 'silk' in the margin. This 

 was very unhappy : for they not only translate the word ' linen' in 

 a multitude of other places ; but, certainly, whatever the word sig- 

 nifies, it cannot mean silk, which was not used, we have reason to 

 think, in those parts of the world, till long after the time of Joseph. 

 They have gone farther, for they have made the word 'silk,' the 

 textual translation of the Hebrew term, in Prov. xxxi. 22, which 

 verse describes the happy effects of female Jewish industry. ' She 

 maketh herself coverings of tapestry ; her clothing is pink and 

 purple.' They suppose, then, that the Jewish women, of not the 

 highest rank in the time of Solomon, were clothed with vestments 

 made of a material so precious in former times, we are told, as to 

 be sold for its weight in gold. 



