Exodus Chapter 25 verse 4 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - And blue, and purple, and scarlet. Cloths of these three colours seem to be meant. The material was probably wool; the blue dye probably indigo, which was the ordinary blue dye of Egypt; the purple was no doubt derived from one or other of the shell-fish so well-known to the Syrians (of which the one most used was the Murex trunculus), and was of a warm reddish hue, not far from crimson; the scarlet (literally, "scarlet worm" or "worm scarlet,") was the produce of the Corcus ilicis, or cochineal insect of the holm oak, which has now been superseded by the Coccus cacti, or cochineal insect of the prickly pear, introduced into Europe from Mexico. And fine linen. The word used is Egyptian. It seems to have designated properly the fine linen spun from flax in Egypt, which was seldom dyed. and was of a beautiful soft white hue. The fineness of the material is extraordinary, equalling that of the best Indian muslins (Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. 3. p. 121). It would seem that the Israelite women spun the thread from the flax (Exodus 35:25), and that the skilled workmen employed by Moses wove the thread into linen (ib, 35). And goat's hair. The soft inner wool of the Angora goat was also spun by the women into a fine worsted (ib, 26), which was woven into cloths, used especially as coverings for tents.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) And blue, and purple, and scarlet.--The colours intended are probably a dark blue produced from indigo, which was the only blue known to the Egyptians, a purplish crimson derived from the murex trunculus, the main source of the "Tyrian dye" of the ancients, and a scarlet furnished by the coccus ilicis, or cochineal insect of the holm oak, which was largely employed in antiquity, though now superseded by the brighter tint obtained from the coccus cacti of Mexico. Linen yarn of the three colours mentioned seems to have been what the people were asked to furnish (Exodus 35:25; Exodus 39:1).Fine linen--i.e., white thread spun from flax, which is found to be the material of almost all the Egyptian dresses, mummy cloths, and other undyed fabrics. It is of a yellowish white, soft, and wonderfully fine and delicate. (See Wilkinson in Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii., p. 233).Goats' hair.--The covering of an Arab tent is to this day almost always of goats'-hair. An excellent fabric is woven from the soft inner hair of the Syrian goat, and a coarse one from the outer coat of the animal. Yarn of goats'-hair was to be offered, that from it might be produced the first of the three outer coverings of the Tabernacle (Exodus 26:7-14).