Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/2249

 under Isa 54:11), yet it is nowhere shown that they, and particularly men, stained the nails of their feet and their toes with the orange-yellow of the Alhenna (Lane'sEgypt, I 33-35); and (2) the word used is not כּפּיו, but ידיו; it is thus the outstretched hands that are meant; and only these, not the closed fist, could be compared to “lilies,” for גּליל signifies not a ring (Cocc., Döpke, Böttch., etc.), but that which is rolled up, a roller, cylinder (Est 1:6), from גּלל, which properly means not κυκλοῦν (Venet., after Gebhardt: κεκυκλωμέναι), but κυλίνδειν. The hands thus are meant in respect of the fingers, which on account of their noble and fine form, their full, round, fleshy mould, are compared to bars of gold formed like rollers, garnished (ממלּאים, like מלּא, Exo 28:17) with stones of Tarshish, to which the nails are likened. The transparent horn-plates of the nails, with the lunula, the white segment of a circle at their roots, are certainly, when they are beautiful, an ornament to the hand, and, without our needing to think of their being stained, are worthily compared to the gold-yellow topaz. Tarshish is not the onyx, which derives its Heb. name שׁהם from its likeness to the finger-nail, but the χρυσόλιθος, by which the word in this passage before us is translated by the Quinta and the Sexta, and elsewhere also by the lxx and Aquila. But the chrysolite is the precious stone which is now called the topaz. It receives the name Tarshish from Spain, the place where it was found. Pliny, xxxviii. 42, describes it as aureo fulgore tralucens. Bredow erroneously interprets Tarshish of amber. There is a kind of chrysolite, indeed, which is called chryselectron, because in colorem electri declinans. The comparison of the nails to such a precious stone (Luther, influenced by the consonance, and apparently warranted by the plena hyacinthis of the Vulg., has substituted golden rings, vol Türkissen, whose blue-green colour is not suitable here), in spite of Hengst., who finds it insipid, is as true to nature as it is tender and pleasing. The description now proceeds from the uncovered to the covered parts of his body, the whiteness of which is compared to ivory and marble. 14b His body an ivory work of art,        Covered with sapphires. The plur. מעים or מעים, from מעה or מעי (vid., under Psa 40:9), signifies properly the tender parts, and that the inward parts of the body, but is here, like the Chald. מעין, Dan 2:32, and the בּטן, Sol 7:3, which also properly signifies the inner part of the body, κοιλία, transferred to the body in its outward appearance. To the question how Shulamith should in such a manner praise that which is for the most part covered with clothing, it is not only to be answered