a rations of milk, are not cooked together on the same fire, nor brought to table at the same time, and they have distinct table-cloths for each. He who eats of flesh, or of broth made of flesh, ought not to eat cheese for an hour after, and those who affect piety abstain for six hours; but if he eat cheese first, he may eat flesh immediately after. If fat fall into a dish of milk, it becomes unclean; but flesh may be never so fat and yet eaten. The eggs of clean birds are only eaten. Flesh and fish are not brought to table at the same time-they even wash the mouth between them, or eat fruit, or a crust of bread. No milk that has been drawn by a Christian, or cheese or butter that has been made by one, is permitted; and they refrain from drinking from a covered well, for fear of poisonous animals. As to their preparation of bread, we may remark, that as it is said in Num. xv. 20, ❝ Ye shall offer up a cake of the first of your dough for a heave offering," therefore at every baking they separate a portion called, Helè, which, as they cannot now offer to the Lord, they, throw into the fire. The size of a grain of barley is sufficient; but the wise men had fixed upon the 40th part for private families, and the 48th for bakers. These last, however, are considered only to have been binding while the temple stood, and the priesthood required maintenance, for a small portion now is reckoned sufficient, and they even find no difficulty in some countries of eating bread that hath been baked by Christians. Indeed, when we inquire into the customs of modern Jews, we find them much affected by local circumstances; for the Jews in Germany have usages different from those in Britain, and the same may be said of other places. b a Synag. Judaic. cap. 33. b Synag. Jud. cap. 34. SECT. VI. Rank and Employments of the Jewish Women. The state of women before christianity very degrading. Condition of Jewish women in pastoral, agricultural, and commercial situations. Grinding corn every morning; managing the concerns of the family; feeding cattle; carry. ing water; working with the needle; spinning; weaving; tapestry. In times prior to the days of our Saviour, the state of women in society was much below what it ought to have been, among the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans: they were too often the slaves of men's pleasures, or the drudges of their families. Some individuals, indeed, distinguished themselves by their superior talents; but it is mortifying to observe, that the most celebrated of these were women of no character, who prostituted themselves at the shrine of ambition or avarice. In the land of Judea, the female character appears to have been somewhat more exalted. Their purer religion had taught that people that they were rational and immortal, and therefore entitled to their love and confidence; yet there were several circumstances which tended to counteract the natural operation of these benevolent principles: for the traditions of the elders were more regarded than the divine institute; divorce was obtained for the most frivolous reasons, and the general practice of polygamy, by rendering women the appendages to rank, or the instruments of pleasure, tended to degrade them in the scale of society. It was reserved for the gospel to do them complete justice, by restoring the primitive institution of marriage; by teaching the equality of the sexes as to moral worth; and by considering them both as candidates for a blessed and glorious immortality. From that time, therefore, we can trace a growing amelioration in their condition in every nation where the gospel has been introduced, and are led to wish for the general diffusion of christianity, as the triumph of virtue and piety over oppression. The land of Judea was divided anciently into pasturage, agriculture, and commerce, and each of these gave a different shade to the female character. In the pastoral districts, even those of the highest rank disdained not to tend their flocks, and conversed freely with men without their veils. Rachel was feeding her father's sheep when met by Jacob; and the daughters of the priest of Midian were employed in the same way when met by Moses. In the agricultural districts, the lower classes generally mixed in the operations of the field, but the higher orders were more reserved. And in cities, where commerce prevailed, they had not only separate apartments, but were more removed from public view, whilst the apartments of the wives of the great seem to have resembled the modern harems.-In tracing the employments of the Jewish women, we may begin with remarking, that the first business of the wives of the poor, and of the meanest female slaves of the rich, every morning at daybreak, was (like the twelve female slaves of Penelope, Odyss. xx. 107.) to grind the daily portion of corn for meal for the family in the hand-mill; a business which those in the same condition perform in the East at this day, as I have more than once had occasion to notice. This grinding of corn by females is several times mentioned in Scripture. Thus, when the first born of Egypt were destroyed, it is remarked, that the calamity extended" from the first born of Pharaoh that sat on the throne, even unto the first born of the maid servant that was behind the mill;" and when Christ C a Gen, xxix. 9. b Exod. ii. 16. • Exod. xi. 5. a foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, he said, that "two women should be grinding at the mill, the one taken and the other left:" which last circumstance is thus explained by Dr. Clarke: " As the operation began, one of the women, with her right hand, pushed the handle to the woman opposite, who again sent it to her companion, thus communicating a rotatory and very rapid motion to the upper stone, their left hands being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escaped from the sides of the machine:"Let me also add, that the Scriptures notice the silence of the hand-mills at daybreak throughout the Jewish cities, as a mark of desolation. Thus in Jer. xxv. 10, it is said, "I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle; and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment ;" and in Rev. xviii. 22, when the destruction of Babylon is foretold, the same images are made use of. The sound of a mill-stone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee." But, leaving this their early task, let us go on to remark, that the cares of the family naturally occupied the Hebrew females through the rest of the day. This is, indeed, the present employment of the eastern women. The rich may indulge in idleness, but the wives of the poor provide food for the family, cut fuel, and fetch water, which last office may point out to us the degrading punishment inflicted by Joshua on the Gibeonites: for not receiving them as allies was bad; the disarming those who had been war a Matt. xxiv. 41. Luke xvii. 35. Travels, part ii. chap. 11. riors, and reducing them to the employment of women, was worse; but the condemning their posterity to the same servile employment was worst of all. It was just now said that the water needed by the families of the Jews was brought by the women, and it may be worthy of notice, that Homer mentions the same custom as prevailing among the Phæacians, Lestrigons, and Ithacans," in the first of which passages aрdevianνεηνίδι καλπιν εχέση, “ a youthful virgin bearing a pitcher," might serve for a description of Rebekah in Genesis xxiv. 15, 16: in the second, we find even a king's daughter employed in the business of drawing water; whilst, in the third, no fewer than twenty virgins repair to the public well to fetch water for washing the sacrifice to Apollo. Nor was this merely an ancient custom, for the same thing is done by the eastern females at this day. Thus Dr. Shaw, when speaking of the occupations of the Moorish women in Barbary, says, "To finish the day, at the time of the evening, even at the time that the women go out to draw water, they still fit themselves with a pitcher or goat's skin, and tying their sucking children behind them, trudge it in this manner two or three miles to fetch water."-But though the chief time of carrying water be the evening, it is not the only time, for they do it early in the morning also, none stirring out when the sun is high except from necessity; and when they go, they have their ear-rings, nose jewels, and ornaments for their wrists and ancles. Indeed they never appear in public without these appendages of female dress.-I may add, that Rebekah's pitcher was an earthen vessel, for so the original word, Ked, signifies; and if such, it perhaps b Travels, p. 421. d Chardin, MS. vol. vi. quoted by Harmer. • Clarke's Harmer, ch. iv. ob. 61. |