Topic
Swaddle; Swaddling-Band
7 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 They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently.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.
- Job 38:9ISBE
When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,
- Lamentations 2:20ISBE
¶ Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Lamentations 2:22ISBE
Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’s anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.
- Ezekiel 16:4ISBE
And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
- Wisdom of Solomon 7:4ISBE
I was nursed in swaddling clothes, and that with cares.
- Luke 2:7ISBE
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
- Luke 2:12ISBE
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 9 references
swod'-'-l, swod'-ling-band (verb chathal, "enwrap," "swaddle" (Eze 16:4), noun chathullah, "swaddling-band" (Job 38:9); verb sparganoo, "to wrap in swaddling clothes" (Lu 2:7,12), noun spargana (pl.), "swaddling clothes" (The Wisdom of Solomon 7:4). the King James Version also has "swaddle" (La 2:22) for Taphach, literally, "to extend." But the word means "to carry on the outstretched palms of the hands" (compare Tippuchim, "dandled in the hands," La 2:20), whence RV's "to dandle"): "To swaddle" and "to swathe" are really the same word, both forms going back to an AS form swethel, "a bandage," but "swaddle" has become the technical term for the wrapping of an infant in the Orient or elsewhere. The oriental swaddling-clothes consist of a square of cloth and two or more bandages. The child is laid on the cloth diagonally and the corners are folded over the feet and body and under the head, the bandages then being tied so as to hold the cloth in position. This device forms the clothing of the child until it is about a year old, and its omission (Eze 16:4) would be a token that the child had been abandoned. The mention of darkness as a "swaddling-band" at the birth of the sea (Job 38:9) is only a poetic way of saying that the sea, at its creation, was covered with clouds and darkness, and to find any idea of restraint involved is fanciful.
Burton Scott Easton
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.