Mr. members of the same family, in general, to occupy each a separate bed. This, according to Maillet, is the custom in Egypt; where, not only the master and the mistress of the family sleep in different beds in the same apartment, but also their female slaves, though several lodge in the same chamber, have each a separate mattress." Yet Solomon seems to intimate that a different custom prevailed in Canaan, and one which the extreme heat of the climate seems positively to forbid: "If two lie together, then they have heat, but how can one be warm alone?” Harmer endeavours to solve the difficulty, by supposing that two might sometimes occupy one bed for medicinal purposes. It is certain that, in the case of David, it was thought a very efficacious method of recalling the vital warmth when it was almost extinguished. But it is probable that the royal preacher alluded rather to the nipping cold of a Syrian winter, when the earth is bound with frost and covered with snow, than to the chilling rigours of extreme old age. The cold in winter is very severe during the night in that country. Even in the day time it is so keen, that Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, had a fire burning before him on the hearth, when he cut the scroll in which the prophecies of Jeremiah were written, and committed it to the flames. This accounts in the most satisfactory manner for the remark of Solomon; for nothing surely can be more natural than for two to sleep under the same canopy during the severe cold of a wintry night. The same desire of comfort, one would think, which induces them to separate in the summer, will incline them, at least occasionally, to cherish the vital heat by a nearer approximation than sleeping in the same • Eccl. iv, 17. P Observ. vol. i, p. 270. n Lett. ii, p. 124. VOL. II. N n room. It is usual, through the east, for a whole family to sleep in the same apartment, especially in the lower ranks of life, laying their beds on the ground. To this custom our Lord alludes in the parable: "He from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my children are now with me in bed ;" that is, my whole family are now a-bed in the same room with me: "I cannot rise to give thee.” The houses in the east were, from the remotest antiquity, lighted with lamps; and hence it is so common in Scripture to call every thing which enlightens the body or mind, which guides or refreshes, by the name of a lamp. These lamps were sustained by a large candlestick set upon the ground. The houses of Egypt, in modern times, are never without lights; they burn lamps all the night long, and in every occupied apartment. So requisite to the comfort of a family is this custom reckoned, or so imperious is the power which it exercises, that the poorest people would rather retrench part of their food than neglect it.* If this custom prevailed in Egypt and the adjacent regions of Arabia and Palestine in former times, it will impart a beauty and force to some passages of Scripture which have been little observed. Thus, in the language of Jeremiah, to extinguish the light in an apartment, is a convertible phrase for total destruction; and if it was the practice in Judea, as in modern Egypt, which can scarcely be doubted, to keep a lamp continually burning in an occupied apartment, nothing can more properly and emphatically represent the total destruction of a city, than the extinction of the lights. "I will take from them, the light of a candle; * Fleury's Manners, &c. p. 80. • Luke ii, 17. r and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonish ment." Job describes the destruction of a family among the Arabs, and the desolation of their dwellings, in the very language of the prophet: "How oft is the candle of the wicked put out, and how oft cometh their destruction upon them."s Bildad expresses the same idea, in the following beautiful passage: "Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine." The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.” A burning lamp is, on the other hand, the chosen symbol of prosperity, a beautiful instance of which occurs in the complaint of Job: “Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me, when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light, I walked through darkness." u When the ten tribes were taken from Rehoboam, and given to his rival, Jehovah promised to reserve one tribe, and assigns this reason, "that David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem.”v The orientals in fitting up their houses, were by no means inattentive to the comfort and satisfaction arising from order and method. Their furniture was scanty and plain; but they were careful to arrange the few household utensils they needed, so as not to encumber the apartments to which they belonged. Their devices for this purpose, which like every part of the structure, bore the character of remarkable simplicity, may not correspond with our ideas of neatness and propriety; but they accorded with their taste, and sufficiently answered their design. One of these consisted in a set of spikes, nails, $ Job xxi, 17. 6. u Job xxix, 4. or large pegs fixed in the walls of the house, upon which they hung up the moveables and utensils in common use, that belonged to the room. These nails they do not drive into the walls with a hammer or mallet, but fix them there when the house is building; for if the walls are of brick, they are too hard, or if they consist of clay, too soft and mouldering, to admit the action of the hammer. The spikes, which are so contrived as to strengthen the walls, by binding the parts together, as well as to serve for convenience, are large, with square heads like dice, and bent at the ends so as to make them cramp irons. They commonly place them at the windows and doors, in order to hang upon them when they chuse, veils and curtains, although they place them in other parts of the room, to hang up other things of various kinds." The care with which they fixed these nails, may be inferred, as well from the important purposes they were meant to serve, as from the promise of the Lord to Eliakim: "And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place."x Pins and nails, Dr. Russel observes in a manuscript note, are seldom used (at Aleppo) for hanging clothes or other articles upon, which are usually laid one over the other, on a chest, or particular kind of chair. This intelligent writer does not refuse that they are occasionally used in modern times; and it is evident from the words of the prophet, that it was common in his time to suspend upon them the utensils belonging to the apartment : " Will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon ?" The word used in Isaiah for a nail of this sort, is the same which denotes the stake, or large pin of iron, which fastened down to the ground W Harmer's Observ. vol. i, p. 290. * Isa. xxii, 23, y Ezek. xv, 3. the cords of their tents. necessary and common use, and of no small importance in all their apartments; and if they seem to us mean and insignificant, it is because they are unknown to us, and inconsistent with our notions of propriety, and because we have no name for them but what conveys to our ear a low and contemptible idea. It is evident from the frequent allusions in Scripture to these instruments, that they were not regarded with contempt or indifference by the natives of Palestine. "Grace has been shewed from the Lord our God," said Ezra," to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place ;" or, as explained in the margin, a constant and sure abode. The dignity and propriety of the metaphor appears from the use which the prophet Zechariah makes of it: "Out of him cometh forth the corner, out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every oppressor together."a The whole frame of government, both in church and state, which the chosen people of God enjoyed, was the contrivance of his wisdom and the gift of his bounty; the foundations upon which it rested; the bonds which kept the several parts together; its means of defence; its officers and executors, were all the fruits of distinguishing goodness; even the oppressors of his people were a rod of correction in the hand of Jehovah, to convince them of sin, and restore them to his service.b These nails, therefore, were of Fires in winter are used but for a little while at Aleppo, which is considerably farther to the north than Jerusalem; and some there use none at all. The inhabitants of Egypt warm their houses in the same way. The use of charcoal с d z Ezra ix, 8. a Zech. x, 4. b Harmer's Obs. vol. i, p. 290. d Pococke's Trav. vol. i, p. 87. |