SPIDER

(1 Ch 92»), and in Hezekiah's treasure-house (2 K 20"); they were used for anointing the dead (2 Ch 16"), and also as perfumes for the living (Ca 4'° etc.). 2. sammlm. Ex 30" 'sweet spices'; and, along with 'incense,' Ex 30' 40", Lv 4', Nu 4'= etc. In the first passage, the ' sweet spices ' are enumerated as stacte, onycha, and galbanum (all of which see). 3. nekB'th, Gn 3725 'spicery' (RVm 'gum tragacanth or storax'), 43" (RV ' spicery '). The gum tragacanth is the product of the Astragalus gummifer, of which several species are known in Syria. The storax (Styrax offlcinalis), a shrub with beautiful white flowers, also affords an aromatic gum valued by the ancients. Whether nekd'th corresponded definitely to one of these, or was a generic term for 'perfumes,' is an open question. 4. 6. Gr. arSmata (Mk 16', EV 'spices') and amBmon (Rev 18", RVm 'amomum,' RV 'spice,' AV omits) are probably both generic. E. W. G. Masteeman.

SPIDER.— 1. semamUh; see Lizabd (7). 2. 'akkablsh (cf. Arab, 'ankabut), Job 8", Is 595- K Both references are to the frailness of the spider's web.

E. W. G. Mastebman.

SPIKENARD (nSrd, Ca V^ 4"- »; also Gr. nardos pistike, Mk 14=, Jn 12=). — The fragrant oil of an Indian plant, Nardostachys jatamansi, which grows with a 'spike.' The Arab, name sunbul hindi, Indian spike, preserves the same idea. The perfume when pure was very valuable (Jn 12').

About the meaning of the Gr. epithet pistike there has been much speulation. See note^in RlVm at Mk 14=, and cf . art. 'Spikenard' in Hastings' DCG. E. W. Mastebman.

SPINDLE. — See Spinning and Weaving, § 3.

SPINNnrG AND WE AVDTG.— 1 . The raw material.— In aUjperiods of Hebrew history the chief textile materials were wool and flax, and to a less extent goats' hair. As for the last named, it will be remembered that St. Paul was proud of being 'chargeable to no man' (2 Co 11') in virtue of his trade as a weaver of tent curtains (Ac 18=), doubtless from the goats' hair (.cilicium) for which his native province was famed. ■The preparation of the various materials for the loom differed according to the nature of each. Wool, before being spim, was thoroughly scoured and carded, prob-ably, as now in the East, by means of a bow-string. In the case of flax, the stalks were rippled and exposed to the sun till thoroughly dry (Jos 2=); thereafter by repeated processes of steeping, drying, and beating, the fibres were ready for the ' heckling ' or combing. Repre-sentations of these processes are preserved in the tombs of Egypt. Is 199 also refers to the flax industry on the banks of the Nile; the emended text runs: 'And confounded shall be the workers in linen; the combing-women and weavers shall grow pale, and they that lay the warp shall be broken in spirit; (even) all that work for hire shall be grieved in soul.'

2. Spinning. — "The spinning was done, as all the world over, by means of the distaff and spindle, and was pre-eminently women's work (Ex SS^"-, 2 K 23', Fr 31"). Both men and women, on the other hand, plied the loom. The distafE probably consisted, as elsewhere, of a piece of cane slit at the top to hold the wool. The spindle everywhere consists of a round shank of wood, 9-12 inches in length, furnished with a hook at the top for catching the wool or flax, and having its lower end inserted into a circular or spherical whorl of clay, stone, or other heavy material to steady the rotary motion of the spindle (see Rich, Diet, of Rom. and Gr. Ant. s.v. 'Fusus'; cf. 'Colus'). Many spindle-whorls have been found in the course of the recent excavations in Palestine (for illust. see Bliss and Macalister, Excavations, etc., pi. lxx. viii.; PEFSt 1902, 39; 1904, 324 and oft.). Sometimes a piece of broken pottery served as a whorl (id. 1902, 338). Distaff and spindle are named together in Pr 31",

SPINNING AND WEAVING

RV, however, rightly reversing the renderings of AV. In 2 S 3" for 'one that leaneth on a staff' recent scholars render 'one that holdeth a spindle,' expressive of the wish that Joab's descendants may be womanish and effeminate.

3. The three varieties of loom. — 'Loom' does not occur in AV; in RV it wrongly appears (Is 38i2) for 'thrum' (so RVm). It is almost certain, however, that Delilah's loom is meant by the word rendered 'beam' in Jg 16" (see 4 (c)). Three varieties of loom were in use around the Mediterranean in ancient times — the horizontal loom and two varieties of the upright loom, distinguished by the Romans as the tela pendula and the tela jugalis.

(a) The horizontal loom is at least as old as the twelfth Egyptian dynasty, and probably goes back to pre-historic times. That the Hebrews were early familiar with it is evident from the incident of Samson and Delilah above referred to, the true interpretation of which will be given in a later section, 4 (c). It is still, with some modifications, the loom in use to-day from Morocco to the Ganges and the farther East.

(6) The oldest variety of the upright loom is that familiar to classical students from the well-known repre-sentation, on a Greek vase, of Penelope's loom. It consisted of two uprights joined at the top by a cross-beam, from which, or from a second beam below it, depended the threads of the warp. These were kept taut by having small stone weights attached to their lower ends, hence the name tela pendula. In view of the numerous 'weavers' weights' recently unearthed at Gezer and elsewhere (illust. PBFSt 1903, 311, plate iv.; cf. 1904, 324), it can no longer be doubted that this form of the upright loom was also in use in Palestine, even as far back as the later Stone Age (Vincent, Canaan d'aprls I'pxploration recente, 405).

(c) The second and later variety of the upright loom had for its distinguishing feature a second cross-beam at the foot of the uprights, which served as a yam -beam or as a cloth-beam, according as the web was begun at the top or at the bottom of the loom. By providing a third cross-beam capable of revolving, a web of much greater length could be woven than if the latter were confined to the height of the loom. The loom in ordinary use in NT times was of this type, as is evident from many passages in the Mishna.

4. OT references to the processes of weaving. — In its simplest form the art of weaving consists in interlacing a series of parallel threads, called the warp, with another series called the weft or woof, in such a way that each thread of the weft passes alternately over and under each thread of the warp. In the beginnings of the art this interlacing was laboriously done by the fingers of the spinner as in plaiting, of which weaving is only a more complicated variety. Now the first process is to stretch the threads of the warp (Lv 13"*-) evenly between the upper and lower beams of the loom. This process of warping is mentioned in the literal sense only. Is 19' (§1), but is elsewhere used in a metaphorical sense, as Job 10" (RV 'knit together'), Ps 139'= RVm, and the difficult passage Is 30'. Of the four alter-natives here given by the Revisers the only admissible rendering is the first of RVm 'weave a web,' or, still better, 'warp a warp,' an apposite figure for commencing a new 'web' of political intrigue (cf. the similar meta-phor 59«). The Heb. law forbade the use of wool and linen, the one as warp, the other as woof, in the same web.

In the process of uniting warp and woof there are 'the three primary movements,' as they are called, to be considered. These are (1) shedding, i.e. dividing the warp into two sets of odd and even threads for the passage of the weft; (2) passing the weft through the 'shed' by means of a rod or a shuttle; and (3) beating up the weft to form with the warp a web of uniform consistency. These three processes, so far as applicable

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