their condition in every nation where the gospel has been introduced, and are led to wish for the general diffusion of christianity, as the triumph of virtue and piety over oppression. b The land of Judea was divided anciently into pasturage, agriculture, and commerce, and each of these gave a different shade to the female character. In the pastoral districts, even those of the highest rank disdained not to tend their flocks, and conversed freely with men without their veils. Rachel was feeding her father's sheep when met by Jacob; and the daughters of the priest of Midian were employed in the same way when met by Moses. In the agricultural districts, the lower classes generally mixed in the operations of the field, but the higher orders were more reserved. And in cities, where commerce prevailed, they had not only separate apartments, but were more removed from public view, whilst the apartments of the wives of the great seem to have resembled the modern harems.-In tracing the employments of the Jewish women, we may begin with remarking, that the first business of the wives of the poor, and of the meanest female slaves of the rich, every morning at daybreak, was (like the twelve female slaves of Penelope, Odyss. xx. 107.) to grind the daily portion of corn for meal for the family in the hand-mill; a business which those in the same condition perform in the East at this day, as I have more than once had occasion to notice. This grinding of corn by females is several times mentioned in Scripture. Thus, when the first born of Egypt were destroyed, it is remarked, that the calamity extended "from the first born of Pharaoh that sat on the throne, even unto the first born of the maid servant that was behind the mill;" and when Christ * Gen. xxix. 9. Exod, ii, 16. • Exod. xi. 5. foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, he said, that "two women should be grinding at the mill, the one taken and the other left:" which last circumstance is thus explained by Dr. Clarke: "As the operation began, one of the women, with her right hand, pushed the handle to the woman opposite, who again sent it to her companion, thus communicating a rotatory and very rapid motion to the upper stone, their left hands being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped from the sides of the machine:"Let me also add, that the Scriptures notice the silence of the hand-mills at daybreak throughout the Jewish cities, as a mark of desolation. Thus in Jer. xxv. 10, it is said, "I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle; and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment;" and in Rev. xviii. 22, when the destruction of Babylon is foretold, the same images are made use of. "The sound of a mill-stone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee." But, leaving this their early task, let us go on to remark, that the cares of the family naturally occupied the Hebrew females through the rest of the day. This is, indeed, the present employment of the eastern women. The rich may indulge in idleness, but the wives of the poor provide food for the family, cut fuel, and fetch water, which last office may point out to us the degrading punishment inflicted by Joshua on the Gibeonites: for not receiving them as allies was bad; the disarming those who had been war Matt. xxiv. 41. Luke xvii. 35. Travels, part ii, chap. 11. riors, and reducing them to the employment of women, was worse; but the condemning their posterity to the same servile employment was worst of all. It was just now said that the water needed by the families of the Jews was brought by the women, and it may be worthy of notice, that Homer mentions the same custom as prevailing among the Phæacians, Lestrigons, and Ithacans,a in the first of which passages лαρdɛvixn— νεηνίδι καλπιν εχέση, “ a youthful virgin bearing a pitcher," might serve for a description of Rebekah in Genesis xxiv. 15, 16: in the second, we find even a king's daughter employed in the business of drawing water; whilst, in the third, no fewer than twenty virgins repair to the public well to fetch water for washing the sacrifice to Apollo. Nor was this merely an ancient custom, for the same thing is done by the eastern females at this day. Thus Dr. Shaw," when speaking of the occupations of the Moorish women in Barbary, says, "To finish the day, at the time of the evening, even at the time that the women go out to draw water, they still fit themselves with a pitcher or goat's skin, and tying their sucking children behind them, trudge it in this manner two or three miles to fetch water."-But though the chief time of carrying water be the evening, it is not the only time, for they do it early in the morning also, none stirring out when the sun is high except from necessity;d and when they go, they have their ear-rings, nose jewels, and ornaments for their wrists and ancles. Indeed they never appear in public without these appendages of female dress.-I may add, that Rebekah's pitcher was an earthen vessel, for so the original word, Ked, signifies; and if such, it perhaps resembled those which Dr. Chandler saw used by the women in Asia Minor. "The women," says he, "resort to the fountains by their houses, each with a large two-handled earthen jar on the back, or thrown over the shoulder for water." As he mentions this when speaking of another of their domestic employments, that of washing the clothes of the family, I shall transcribe the passage: "Although the women," says he, "live very retired, this operation is performed in public, at the fountains by the houses, or by river sides, where they have their faces veiled, and commonly in great numbers together." In Europe this operation is considered a menial employment, but it was not so anciently; for Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, the king of Phæacia, went to those cisterns at a distance from the city, where the damsels were wont to wash their garments, to wash her brother's robes and her own, as preparatory to her marriage." We read in Jer. ii. 22, of their using nitre, or the natrum of the ancients, which was a fixed alkali, and soap, for these purposes. And in Job ix. 30, snow water, or, as it is in the original, Borith, or Berith, in place of soap, which M. de Goguet imagines to be "the saltwort, a plant very common in Syria, Judea, Egypt, and Arabia. They burn it, he says, and pour water upon the ashes. This water becomes impregnated with a very strong lixivial salt, proper for taking stains. or impurities out of wool or cloth." Perhaps it meant not one particular plant only, but the salt derived from the ashes of all those vegetables in general, which, by being burnt, produce potash. But we are not to suppose that domestic cares engaged all their time, for various employments occupied * Page 21. b Odyss. vi. 58. Origin of Laws, vol. i, book ii, ch. 2. a the attention of the mistress of the family and her maidens. Thus, working with the needle was another of their female employments. And so early as the time when the Israelites were in the wilderness, we find them employed in ornamenting the hangings of the tabernacle, and the garments of the priests, with devices of blue and purple and scarlet, on a ground of fine white twined linen. It would appear that the eastern needle-work was very fine, and of great value; for the mother of Sisera is represented as hoping that her son had obtained from the conquered Israelites "a prey of divers colours of needle-work; of divers colours of needle-work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil." And in Ps. xlv. 14, the king's daughter is said to be brought unto the king in raiment of needle-work. Indeed the same is the frequent employment of the ladies of the East at the present day, for we often read of beautiful specimens of their work. Thus Chardin mentions that they take a pleasure in ornamenting handkerchiefs with a needle, which they either wear themselves, or give in presents to their relations and friends; and Lady Mary W. Montagu, in her Letters, says, that they still pass much of their time in embroidering veils and robes, surrounded by their maids.". Spinning was another of their employments, for even so early as the making of the tabernacle, all the women that were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought what they had spun, both of blue, of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen, to assist in the erection of that sacred tent; which shows that they had brought with them from Egypt this and the other arts mentioned in Exodus, in which country, it is probable, they hád " a Exod. xxvi. 36. xxviii. 39. b Judg. v. 30. d Vol. ii. p. 44, 45. |