Job 42:14

14. And he called the name The grace and beauty of person of the three daughters are reflected in the descriptive names, given, not by the parent necessarily, but more probably by admiring friends. They were like the three graces of classic times. The subject of the word called is not defined. Sir Thomas Roe, the traveller, says of the Persians, “They call their women by the names of spices or odours, or of pearls or precious stones, or else by other names of pretty or pleasing signification.”

Jemima (Sept., Day) was in former times supposed to be an Aramaic word. and to signify pure as daylight; but it is now regarded as kindred to the Arabic Jemaimat, which means a dove, and was given (so Delitzsch thinks) as a name “because of her dove’s eyes.” Compare Song of Solomon 2:14; Song of Solomon 5:2; Song of Solomon 6:9.

Kezia (Sept., Casia) Cassia, or, fine as the fragrance of cassia, “as if woven out of the odor of cinnamon.” Delitzsch. Comp. Psalms 45:8; Song of Solomon 1:3. This bark is something like cinnamon, but not so aromatic. Its Hebrew name, ketsiah, expresses the fact that it is stripped from the trees. Excessive fondness for perfumes is characteristic of the people of the East unto the present day. “The people of the Hedjaz, especially the ladies,” says Burckhardt, “steep rose-buds in water, which they afterward use for their ablutions.” Arabia, 1:68.

Keren-happuch (Septuagint, Amalthaea’s horn,) is literally a horn of paint boxes of pigment in those days being, as is supposed, sometimes made of horn, or in the shape of a horn. Oriental ladies from very ancient times have painted their eyes, in order to produce an apparent enlargement of the eye, and to promote its brilliancy. The accompanying engraving is copied from the sarcophagus of Oimenepthah, and is supposed to represent an Egyptian goddess whose eyebrows and eyelids have been painted with a black dye.

To the bright and languishing expression thus produced the writer of the Proverbs (Proverbs 6:25) is supposed to refer when he says, “Neither let her [the wanton] take thee with her eyelids.” Horns containing pigment have been found in Egyptian sarcophagi, with silver, ivory, and wooden needles, and minute brushes for applying the cosmetic to the eye. The Assyrian monuments also give evidence of the prevalence of the same custom. The art, in later times, became meretricious, as may be seen in 2 Kings 9:30, (margin;) Jeremiah 4:30; Ezekiel 23:40. The Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 54:11) makes the colouring matter (stibium, Hebrews pouk,) used in painting the eye the ground of an exquisite figure the very cement of the stones which compose the new Jerusalem, he prophesies, shall be stibium, thus intimating that, as with the human eye artificially decorated, the beauty of these stones shall stand forth in greater splendour because of the dark background in which they also are set. The name of Keren-happuch, says Hengstenberg, is an irony upon the use of cosmetics. See further in RUSSELL’S History of Aleppo, i, pp. 111, 366.