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modern Oriental shoes and sandals. The preceding figures of the same cut also deserve attention. They are such as appear on a large sitting figure now in the British Museum. They seem fastened by a strap passing between the great toe and its neighbour, and attached to an upper part, perhaps of wood, which crosses the instep and descends to the sole of the sandal on each side. The sole of the sandal and the wooden part which crosses the instep are evidently one piece, in this instance' (Long's Egyptian Antiquities, ii. 16). Among the same people the sandals of the priests were, according to Herodotus, made of papyrus. There is a figure in the British Museum which appears to bave sandals of this sort, and which is thus mentioned in the work just cited:-These sandals must be considered as made of a flexible material, for they are represented bending exactly as the sole of the foot is bent at the toes, owing to the kneeling attitude of the figure. The bottom of the sole is also marked with transverse lines, showing that it is composed of separate small parts, the whole of which are kept together by a rim of similar strips, running all round and forming the margin of the sole. in fact a shoe of papyrus, or some other flexible material' (see fig. a in the following cut). With the examples of Egyptian sandals in the first engraving, and those which will be found in the second, the following observations of Sir J. G. Wilkinson may be usefully connected. The (Egyptian) sandals varied slightly in form; those worn by the upper classes, and by women, were usually pointed and turned up at the end, like our skates, and many Eastern slippers of the present day. Some had a sharp flat point, others were nearly round. They were made of a sort of woven or interlaced work, of palm leaves

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and papyrus stalks, or other similar materials; sometimes of leather; and were frequently lined within with cloth, on which the figure of a captive was painted; that humiliating position being considered suited to the enemies of their country, whom they hated and despised.' These facts are of particular importance ou account of the prox imity of the Hebrews to, and their connection with, the Egyptians, and from the exhibition which they offer of an early and simple form of the sandal.

The progressive history of the sandal will be better illustrated by our cuts than by written explanation. From these, it will be seen that it ultimately became an elaborate and ornamental article, with a more complete sole, bound to the foot and leg with lacings in multiplied convolutions, and sometimes decorated with costly ornaments of various kinds. Attention to the sandals became a foppery in the end; and we see that Philopomen, in recommending soldiers to give more attention to their warlike accoutrements than to their common dress, advises them to be less nice about their shoes and sandals, and more careful in observing that their greaves were kept bright and fitted well to their legs (Polybius, xi.). The Jewish ladies seem to have been very particular about their sandals, if we may judge from what is said of the bride in Sol. Song, vii. 1:How beautiful are thy feet with sandals, O prince's daughter!' and in the instance of Judith, in the Apocrypha, we observe that it was not so much the general splendour of her attire-her rich bracelets, rings, and necklaces-that attracted most strongly the attention of the fierce Holofernes; but it was her sandals' that 'ravished his eyes' (Jud. xvi. 9).

Some of the customs connected equally with sandals and

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a, b, c, Egyptian; d, e, f, g, h, i, Persian; k, Asiatic; 7, n, Phrygian; m, 7, r, s, Dacian; o, p, Grecian.

shoes we have formerly noticed; such as that frequent washing of the feet which they rendered necessary, and the custom of taking them off on entering a sacred place, or even a house. We need therefore only further mention, that to loose or unbind the sandals was usually the business of the lowest servants. Disciples, however, performed this duty for their teachers; but the rabbins advised them not to do it before strangers, lest they should be mistaken for servants. It was also the business of an inferior servant not only to loose, but to carry his master's sandals or shoes, when not immediately in use; whence the proverbial expressions of John the Baptist, in speaking of ChristWhose shoes I am not worthy to bear' (Mat. iii. 11);— The latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose' (Mark i. 7).

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The Talmudists have some instructive remarks on the sandal, which we the rather cite here, as, being intended to mark the distinction between it and the shoe, it serves well to connect with the preceding observations the few further remarks which we have to offer on shoes, properly so called. Shoes were of more delicate use, sandals were more ordinary and fitter for service; a shoe was of softer leather, a sandal of harder. There were sandals also whose sole or lower part was of wood, the upper of leather, and these were fastened together with nails. Some sandals were made of rushes, or of the bark of palm-trees, and they were open both ways, so that one might put in his foot either before or behind. Those of a violet or purple colour were most valued, and worn by persons of the first quality and distinction.'

A shoe is a covered sandal; and the idea of attaching a covering to the sole, so as to obtain a more complete protection for the foot, was too obvious to be delayed for any considerable length of time. Indeed, at the present day, the shoes generally used in the East remain something between a complete shoe and a sandal, or, as we may say, slippers. Many of them have no quarters, and scarcely do more than cover the toes; yet the natives walk in them with extreme ease, and almost never let them slip from the feet. The common shoe in Turkey and Arabia is like our slipper with quarters, except that it has a sharp and prolonged toe turned up. No shoes in Western Asia have 'ears,' and they are generally of coloured leather-red or yellow morocco in Turkey and Arabia, and green shagreen in Persia. In the latter country the shoe or slipper in most general use (having no quarters) has a very high heel; but, with this exception, the heels in these countries are generally flat. No shoes, or even boots, have more than a single sole (like what we call 'pumps'), which in wet weather generally imbibes the water freely. When the shoe without quarters is used, an inner slipper, with quarters, but without a sole, is worn inside, and the outer one alone is thrown off on entering a house. But in Persia, instead of this inner slipper of leather, a worsted sock is used. Those shoes that have quarters are usually worn without any inner 'covering for the foot. The peasantry and the nomade tribes usually go barefoot, or wear a rude sandal or shoe, of their own manufacture: those who possess a pair of red leather or other shoes seldom wear them except on holiday occasions, so that they last a long time, if not so long as among the Maltese, with whom a pair of shoes endures for several generations, being, even on holiday occasions, more frequently carried in the hand than worn on the feet. The boots are generally of the same construction and material as the shoes; and the general form may be compared to that of the buskin, the height varying from the mid-leg to near the knee. They are of capacious breadth, except among the Persians, whose boots generally fit closer to the leg, and are mostly of a sort of Russia leather, uncoloured; whereas those of other nations are, like the slippers, of red or yellow morocco. There is also a boot or shoe for walking in frosty weather, which differs from the common one only in having, under the heel, iron tips, which, being partly bent vertically with a jagged edge, give a hold on the ice which prevents slipping. These are particularly useful in ascending or descending the frozen mountain paths. The sandal with the sole armed with

iron points, represented in our last cut, had doubtless the same use. The shoes of the Oriental ladies are sometimes highly ornamental; the covering part being wrought with gold, silver, and silk, and perhaps set with jewels, real or imitated. The observations therefore made above, in reference to the sandals of the bride in Solomon's Song, and of Judith, may be equally applicable to shoes: and indeed it is not certain whether shoes or sandals are in these instances intended. We have thus spoken first of modern Oriental shoes, because we apprehend that they belong to a class of subjects best illustrated by the existing usages of the East. We have spoken from personal observation on this point.

The shoes of the ancient Romans were chiefly of crude untanned leather. Ultimately shoes of tanned leather, of such forms as our cuts exhibit, were usually worn out of doors by persons in good circumstances; but in-doors they continued to wear sandals. Wooden shoes were generally worn by poor people, slaves, and peasants; but sometimes rude sandals, or shoes of raw leather. None but those who had served the office of Edile were allowed to wear shoes dressed with alum and of a red colour, which we may therefore infer to have been a favourite colour for shoes, as it appears to have been among the Hebrews, and as it is now in Western Asia. The Roman senators wore shoes or buskins of a black colour, with a crescent of gold or silver on the top of the foot. Women also appear to have used these ornaments; and perhaps Isaiah refers to something of this sort in ch. iii. 8. The Emperor Aurelian forbade men to wear red, yellow, white, or green shoes, allowing them to women only; and Heliogabalus forbade women to wear gold and precious stones in their shoes; and this, with what we have said of modern shoes, helps us to understand in what the splendour of the Hebrew women's shoes consisted. Calmet finds boots of metal in the Scripture and in Homer; but we imagine that greaves only are intended in the passages to which he alludes. What Vegetius says about the Roman soldiers having iron shoes, probably means that the soles were plated, shod, or nailed with iron. This they certainly were. The nails had sometimes their points outward, probably, as already intimated, to serve as snow or frost shoes, and also to assist in scaling walls in the attack of fortified places. Luxury, however, found its way even to the nails of shoes; for we are told that in the army of Antiochus most of the soldiers had golden nails

under their shoes.

We have not mentioned Egyptian shoes, because we are not aware that anything that can properly be called a shoe occurs in Egyptian paintings and sculptures; and the sandals we have already noticed. Wilkinson, indeed, gives a representation of a sandal of interwoven materials, with low sides, like a shoe or slipper. It is clear, however, that the Egyptians had the art of tanning and dressing leather. This would be alone probable from our finding that art among the Hebrews immediately after they left Egypt; and that the Egyptians made shoes with leather at some period or other is testified by Belzoni, who says:- They had the art of tanning leather, with which they made shoes as well as we do, some of which I found of various shapes. They had also the art of staining the leather with various colours, as we do morocco, and actually knew the mode of embossing on it, for I found leather with figures impressed on it, quite elevated. I think it must have been done with a hot iron while the leather was damp' (Researches and Operations, ii. 271, 8vo. edit.). This is important; because it is fair to infer that the Hebrews were not ignorant of what was known to their neighbours. The sandals or shoes which the Hebrews wore when they left Egypt were doubtless of Egyptian manufacture, and probably long continued to afford the model of those which they afterwards used. It is not however necessary to suppose that the art of preparing leather and of forming shoes had at that early time arrived at such perfection as is described by Belzoni. This conclusion we find confirmed by Wilkinson, who believes the shoes or low boots which have been found in Egypt to be of comparatively late date, and to have belonged to Greeks; for since no persons are repre

sented in the paintings wearing them, except foreigners, we may conclude they were not adopted by the Egyptians, at least in a Pharaonic age. They were of leather, as described by Belzoni, generally of a green colour, laced in front by thongs, which passed through small loops on either side; and were principally used, as in Greece and Etruria, by women. This statement is, however, still interesting, since the comparatively late time of the Greek domination in Egypt belongs to a period which the Scripture history embraces. It is also, as we have seen, allowed by Wilkinson, that the sandals of the very early Egyptians were sometimes of leather.

In the absence of very definite information concerning the shoes and sandals of the Hebrews, the statements we have given concerning those of the modern occupants of Western Asia, and of ancient nations with which the Hebrews were at different times acquainted, will furnish

the best assistance which can now be obtained for the elucidation of the various passages of the Old and New Testament in which the equipment of the feet is mentioned.

21. Salmon begat Boaz,' etc.-In the genealogy of our Saviour contained in the first chapter of St. Matthew, Boaz is described (v. 5) as the son of Salmon by Rahab. Now if this Rahab were, as is usually supposed, Rahab the harlot, who protected the spies at Jericho, it is not easy to conceive that only three persons-Boaz, Obed, and Jesse-should have intervened between her and David, a period of at least 400 years. Usher's solution, that the ancestors of David were probably blessed with extraordinary longevity, is not altogether satisfactory. It seems more probable that the sacred writers have mentioned in the genealogy only such names as were distinguished and known among the Jews, according to the practice of abbreviated registration which has been fully described under Genesis.

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THE FIRST BOOK

OF

SAMUEL,

OTHERWISE CALLED

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE
THE KINGS.

THE two books which bear the name of Samuel anciently made but one book among the Jews, which was by them called the Book of Samuel (p): and this circumstance gave more propriety to the title than it exhibits since the book has been divided into two; for the portion of the whole which now forms the second book, and which carries the Hebrew history through a period which did not commence till after the death of Samuel, could not possibly have been written by him. Whatever impropriety therefore is found in the application of Samuel's name to these books, arises from the division into two, for as one it might very properly be called after Samuel, not only from the great figure which he makes in the first portion of it, but because that portion may very probably have been written by him. But although the book bears this title in the earliest Hebrew copies with which we are acquainted, it is a matter of some doubt whether it was so called at the earliest period; for it would seem that the Seventy read a different title in their copies, calling it, as well as the two succeeding books, the Book of Kings, or rather of Kingdoms (Barisiwr), which is a very proper title, seeing that the book (taken as one) relates in much detail the institution of the monarchy and the reigns of the first two of the kings. This has been imitated in the Vulgate, which calls the two books of Samuel the first and second book of Kings; and this is also preserved in the second title of our version, otherwise called the first' and the second book of Kings.' The Syriac version names this book the book of Samuel the Prophet;' the Arabic, the book of Samuel the Prophet, which is the first book of Kings.'

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It is the belief of the Jews that the twenty-four first chapters of the book (the two taken as one) were written by Samuel himself, and that the remainder was supplied by the prophets Nathan and Gad. This notion is founded on the passage in the first book of Chronicles (xxix. 29), ' Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer;' and this really does seem as conclusive evidence of authorship as can be found in Scripture. First, we have the acts of David, 'first and last,' in the books before us; and then we are told by an independent authority, that the books containing these acts were written by Samuel, Nathan, and Gad, who were successively contemporary with the events which they relate and this of course implies, that the portion of this history with which Samuel was contemporary (being the first twenty-four chapters) was written by him. No extent of inquiry can bring us to any more satisfactory conclusion than is thus obtained. It will in any case appear that the two books of Samuel were composed before those of Kings and Chronicles; for in these many circumstances are manifestly taken and repeated from the books of Samuel. We may therefore assent to the general opinion that Samuel was the author of the greater part of the first of the books which bear his name; which was probably composed by him towards the latter end of his life. There appear to be no allusions to monuments, etc., which are not consistent with this hypothesis, although some have been led by them to conceive that the book was prepared in a later age (by Jeremiah or Ezra), from contemporary documents or from oral traditions. The questions of authorship, of exact date, and of the mode of formation, are however of little consequence in themselves, though they may gratify our curiosity- the authority of the book never having been disputed, and that being the same, if we regard it as an inspired book, in whatever age or by whatever person composed. But the internal evidence seems to us entirely in favour of the contemporary authorship. The narrative is full of natural touches and incidental allusions, which indicate that the writer was

personally cognizant of much that he relates; nor is it likely that a writer in a later age would give so much prominence to the history of David, while the annals of subsequent kings are so scantily recorded.

If, therefore, it were even disputed that the work was a contemporary production, in the state in which it has descended to us, it would still be allowed that it had been reduced to its present shape from contemporary materials, which Samuel, Gad, and Nathan are more likely than any other persons of their time to have provided. Besides, a history, manifestly complete in itself, and which comes down to the very verge of David's death without including that event, affords a manifest sign of having been substantially written while that monarch still lived.

The books, as they stand, are among the most popularly interesting in Scripture. They are so rich in lively pictures of character, and descriptions, that in this respect they deviate from exact history, and sometimes become biographical. They also abound in little natural touches, which constitute one of the chief beauties of the narrative. As the principal of these beautiful narrative pieces of the two books, we may indicate the vision of Samuel, in 1 Sam. iii.; the death of Eli, in 1 Sam. iv. 13-22; the anointing of Saul, in 1 Sam. x.; and that of David, in xvi.; and the grief of David for the death of Absalom, in 2 Sam. xviii. 29-33. Not less striking are the various discourses and addresses which are interspered in the course of the history-such as the address of Samuel to the people respecting their demand for a king, and in vindication of his own character, as given in 1 Sam. xii.; that of Abigail to David, to dissuade him from wreaking his threatened vengeance upon the house of Nabal, in 1 Sam. xxv. 24-31; that whereby Nathan made David sensible of the enormity of his crime in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba, in 2 Sam. xii. 1-12; that of the woman of Tekoah to David, to induce him to recall Absalom, in 2 Sam. xiv. 4-17; that whereby Hushai induced the council of war to reject the advice of Ahithophel, in 2 Sam. xvii. 7-13; and, finally, the impressive words in which the aged Barzillai declined the proffered favours of the king, in 2 Sam. xix. 34-37. There are, also, poetical pieces, which, of their different kinds, are among the most remarkable specimens of Hebrew poesy; namely, the very beautiful song of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, in 1 Sam. ii.; the tender and affecting elegy of David upon the death of Saul and Jonathan, in 2 Sam. i. 19-27; his short but characteristic and striking elegy upon the death of Abner, in 2 Sam. iii. 33-34; and the poem called 'the last words of David,' in 2 Sam. xxiii. which is remarkable not less for the sentiments which it embodies, than for the felicitous images in which it abounds.

Portions

The authenticity of the books is open to the full measure of the proof usually adduced. of them are quoted in the New Testament, as 1 Sam. xiii. 14, in Acts xiii. 22; 2 Sam. vii. 14, in Heb. i. 5. References to them occur in other parts of Scripture, especially the Psalms, to which they often afford very interesting historical illustration. Much stress has been laid upon the alleged contradiction which the books contain; these have been considered in the notes, which will, we trust, shew that none of them are incapable of satisfactory explanation.

The books of Samuel contain the history of Samuel's administration as judge, and of the regal government introduced by his mediation, and established in the house of David. This history divides itself naturally into three parts;-1. The history of Samuel's administration as prophet and judge, 1 Sam. i.-xii. 2. The history of Saul's government, and of the early history of David, prospectively anointed king, 1 Sam. xii-xxxi. 3. The history of David's government, with which the second book is wholly occupied.

The history of the two books covers a space of about 120 years, reckoning from the birth of Samuel to near the end of David's reign of this the first book occupies eighty years, or from the birth of Samuel to the death of Saul.

There are above a hundred treatises on different portions of the two books of Samuel. The following are the separate commentaries on them, or on the group of historical books in which they are included:-Strigelii, Comment. in quatuor Libr. Reg. et Paralipp., 1591; Ferrarii Comm. in Libr. Josua, Jud., Ruth, Reg. et Paralipp., 1609; Willet, An Exposition upon the First and Second Books of Samuel, 1614; Drusii, Annotatt. in Locos diffic. Jos., Jud., et Sam., 1618; Sanctii in quat. Libr. Reg. et Paralipp. Comment., 1625; Bonfrère, Comment. in Libr. quat. Reg. et Paralipp., 1643; Guild, The Throne of David, or an Exposition of the Second Book of Samuel, 1659; Osiander, Comment. in i et ii Sam., 1687; Schmidt, in Libr. Sam. Comment., 1697; Hensler, Erläuterungen des 1 Buch Samuels, 1795. [Die Bücher Samuels erklärt, von Otto Thenius, Leipzig, 1842; part of the Kurzgefasstes Handbuch mentioned in the Introduction to Judges, q. v.]

VOL. II.

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