Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/262

 and enterprize were directed into other channels, and they supplied themselves from foreign countries with wool for their celebrated manufactures.

On the other hand, the Hebrews, who were the immediate neighbors of the Phœnicians, were altogether an agricultural and pastoral people. The history of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, presents to us beautiful images of the kind of life, which still continues with little variation among the Bedouins, or wandering Nomads of Arabia. Not only was David a shepherd boy; but, when he had ascended the throne, he had numerous herds and flocks superintended by distinct officers. "And over the herds that fed in Sharon was Shitrai the Sharonite: and over the herds that were in the valleys was Shaphat the son of Adlai. Over the camels also was Obil the Ishmaelite: and over the asses was Jehdeiah the Meronothite: and over the flocks was Jaziz the Hagarite. All these were the rulers of the substance which was king David's." (I. Chron. xxvii. 29-31. The reader cannot fail to call to mind David's frequent allusions in the Psalms to those employments, which were no less familiar to his own mind than to the rest of his countrymen, and which supplied to them the most touching comparisons for the expression of their deepest religious convictions. The passage "The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod (or crook) and thy staff, they comfort me" (Psalm xxiii. 1, 2, 4.). "He shall feed (i. e. tend) his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young" (Is. xl. ii.). "The pastures are clothed with flocks," an expression denoting the vast multitudes of sheep, which overspread the mountains and plains (Ps. lxv. 13.). "Be thou diligent," says Solomon, "to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of thy field; and thou shalt have goat's milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance of thy maidens" (Prov.