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Clothing and adornment
Purple and scarlet
Hebrew argaman (purple), shani (scarlet) · Greek porphyra · dyes from sea snails and insects
The costliest dye of the ancient world came from murex sea snails of the eastern Mediterranean. A gland of the snail gave a fluid that turned in the air from yellowish white to red, violet or purple; the Bible’s “blue” was a violet shade of the same dye. Tyre and Sidon were the great centers, and large heaps of crushed shells have been found along the coast. Being so costly, purple was worn by kings and the rich — the kings of Midian (Judges 8:26) and the rich man “dressed in purple and fine linen” (Luke 16:19).
Scarlet and crimson came from the kermes, a small insect that lives on a kind of oak. A midwife tied a scarlet thread around the wrist of the newborn Zerah (Genesis 38:28). Yellow came from safflower, orange-yellow saffron from crocus flowers, and green usually from a mix of dyes; cloth was dyed in large vats. In Philippi Paul met Lydia, “a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira” (Acts 16:14), a town with a dyers’ guild. By one view she sold true murex purple; by another, a cheaper red cloth dyed with madder root.
Key verses
They hammered out thin sheets of gold and cut threads from them to interweave with the blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and fine linen—the work of a skilled craftsman.The weight of the gold earrings he had requested was 1,700 shekels, in addition to the crescent ornaments, the pendants, the purple garments of the kings of Midian, and the chains from the necks of their camels.Of embroidered fine linen from Egypt they made your sail, which served as your banner. Of blue and purple from the coasts of Elishah they made your awning.And as she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it around his wrist. “This one came out first,” she announced.Now there was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor.Among those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Dye, Dyeing, Dyer; Animals: Snail; Cloth and Cloth Manufacturing*: Cloth Dyes and Dyeing; Color; Thyatira; Lydia (Person)
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
