Oriental customs: or an illustration of the sacred Scriptures, by an explanatory application of the customs and manners of the Eastern nations, and especially the Jews. Therein alluded to, together with observations on many difficult and obscure texts, collected from the most celebrated travellers, and the most eminent critics / by Samuel Burder.

  • Samuel Burder
Date:
1802
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Oriental customs: or an illustration of the sacred Scriptures, by an explanatory application of the customs and manners of the Eastern nations, and especially the Jews. Therein alluded to, together with observations on many difficult and obscure texts, collected from the most celebrated travellers, and the most eminent critics / by Samuel Burder. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    when the first sketch only is drawn, and when the piece is finished; or to the first sketch of a painting when compared with what is yet more expressive than even the completest painting, an exact image. Doddridge in loc. No. 563.—x. 22. Our bodies washed with pure water.] Washings and purifications were very constantly per- formed by the Jews, and the people of the East in gene- ral. The water used on these occasions was required to be very pure, and was therefore fetched from foun- tains and rivers. The water of lakes or standing ponds was unfit for this purpose : so was also that of the purest stream if it had been a considerable time separated from its source. Hence recens aqua, fresh water, is applied to this use in Virgil: Occupat iEneas aditum, corpusque recent! Spargit aqua.— iEn. vi. lin. 635. The Jewish essenes made use of the purer sorts of water for cleansing, as we are informed by Porphyry. To this practice the apostle seems to allude in these words: and Ezekiel in like manner says, then will I sprinkle dean water upon you, and ye shall be clean, (Ezek. xxxvi. 25.) Sea water, on account of its saltness, was preferred to any other. Hence Aristeas reports concerning some of the Jews who lived near the sea, that every day before matins they used to wash their hands in the sea. Potter’s Archwologia Greeca, vol. i. p. 222. No. 564.—xi. 35. Tortured.] It does not seem to be determined whether the torture here spoken of was a mode of punishment distinct from others, or whether the term is not to be taken in a general sense for all kinds of capital punishment and violent death. Doddridge says the original word signifies a peculiar sort of torture,