Topic
Camel's Hair
4 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- 2 Kings 1:8ISBE
And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite.
- Zechariah 13:4ISBE
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive:
- Matthew 3:4ISBE
And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.
- Mark 1:6ISBE
And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 4 references
(triches kamelou): In Mt 3:4 and Mr 1:6 the description of John's raiment is explicit to the extent of telling the kind of hair of which his raiment was made. It is probable that his garment was made of a tawed camel skin, for the more expensive woven camel's hair garment would not be in keeping with the rest of the description. It is still common among the poor in some parts of Syria, when a camel or other animal dies, to remove its skin and, after treating the inner surface to stop decomposition, to make it up into various domestic articles. The writer once saw a peasant dragging a skin along the road which proved to be that of a donkey which had just died on the route. His intention was probably to make it up into a cloak. Some believe that Elijah's mantle was of camel's hair (2Ki 1:8; compare Zec 13:4). Of that we cannot be sure, for in the East today the hairy garment is usually goat's hair or wool either woven or still clinging to the skin. It was much more likely to have been one of these latter. See SHEEP. Camel's hair, when woven into fabrics, as in rugs, makes an article of even softer and more glossy texture than wool.
See WEAVING.
James A. Patch
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.