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IX. The VEIL, of various texture–coarse or fine–according to circumstances, was thrown over the head by the Hebrew lady, when she was unexpectedly surprised, or when a sudden noise gave reason to expect the approach of a stranger. This beautiful piece of drapery, which flowed back in massy folds over the shoulders, is particularly noticed by Isaiah, as holding an indispensable place in the wardrobe of his haughty country-women; and in this it was that the enamored Hebrew woman sought the beloved of her heart.

ADDENDA TO SCENE THE FIRST.

I. Of the Hebrew ornaments for the throat, some were true necklaces, in the modern sense, of several rows, the outermost of which descended to the breast, and had little pendulous cylinders of gold, (in the poorer classes, of copper,) so contrived as to make a jingling sound on the least motion of the person; others were more properly golden stocks, or throat-bands, fitted so close as to produce in the spectator an unpleasant imagination (and in the wearer, as we learn from the Thalmud, VI. 43, until reconciled by use, an actual feeling) of constriction approaching to suffocation. Necklaces were, from the earliest times, a favorite ornament of the male sex in the East; and expressed the dignity of the wearer, as we see in the instances of Joseph, of Daniel, etc. indeed the gold chain of office, still the badge of civic (and until lately, of military) dignities, is no more than the outermost row of the Oriental necklace. Philo of Alexandria, and the other Arabian poets, give us some idea of the importance attached by the women of Asia to this beautiful ornament, and of the extraordinary money value which it sometimes bore: and from the case of the necklace of gold and amber, in the 15th Odyssey, (v. 458,) combined with many other instances of the same kind, there can be no doubt that it was the neighboring land of Phoenicia from which the Hebrew women obtained their necklaces, and the practice of wearing them.

II. The fashion, however, of adorning the necklace with golden Suns and Moons, so agreeable to the Hebrew ladies of Isaiah’s time, (chap. iii. 18,) was not derived from Phoenicia, but from Arabia. At an earlier period, (Judges, viii. 21,) the camels of the Midianites were adorned with golden moons, which also decorated the necks of the emirs of that nomadic tribe. These appendages were not used merely by way of ornament, but originally as talismans, or amulets, against sickness, danger, and every species of calamity to which the desert was liable. The particular form of the amulet is to be explained out of the primitive religion, which prevailed in Arabia up to the rise of Mahometanism, in the seventh century of Christianity, viz. the Sabean religion, or worship of the heavenly host–sun, moon, and stars, the most natural of all modes of idolatry, and especially to a nomadic people in flat and pathless deserts, without a single way-mark or guidance for their wanderings, except what they drew from the silent heavens above them. It is certain, therefore, that, long before their emigration into Palestine, the Israelites had received the practice of wearing suns and moons from the Midianites; even after their settlement in Palestine, it is certain that the worship of the starry host struck root pretty deeply at different periods; and that, to the sun and moon, in particular, were offered incense and libations.

From Arabia, this fashion diffused itself over many countries; [Footnote 6] and it was not without great displeasure that, in a remote age, Jerome and Tertullian discovered this idolatrous ornament upon the bosoms of their countrywomen.

The crescents, or half-moons of silver, in connection with the golden suns, [Footnote 6] were sometimes set in a brilliant frame that represented a halo, and still keep their ground on the Persian and Turkish toilette, as a favorite ornament.

III. The GOLDEN SNAKES, worn as one of the Hebrew appendages to the necklace, had the same idolatrous derivation, and originally were applied to the same superstitious use–as an amulet, or prophylactic ornament. To minds predisposed to this sort of superstition, the serpent came specially recommended under the circumstances of the Hebrews, from the conspicuous part which this reptile sustains in the mythologies of the East. From the earliest periods to which tradition ascends, serpents of various species were consecrated to the religious feelings of Egypt, by temples, sacrifices, and formal rites of worship. This mode of idolatry had at various periods infected Palestine. According to 2 Kings, xviii. 4, at the accession of King Hezekiah, the Israelites had raised peculiar altars to a great brazen serpent, and burned incense upon them. Even at this day the Abyssinians have an unlimited reverence for serpents; and the blacks in general regard them as fit subjects for divine honors. Sonnini (II. 388) tells us, that a serpent’s skin is still looked upon in Egypt as a prophylactic against complaints of the head, and also as a certain cure for them. And of the same origin, no doubt, was the general belief of antiquity, (according to Pliny, 30, 12,) that the serpent’s skin was a remedy for spasms. That the golden serpent kept its place as an ornament of the throat and bosom after the Christian era, we learn from Clement of Alexandria. That zealous father, so intolerant of superstitious mummery under every shape, directs his efforts against this fashion as against a–device of the devil.