The girdle is an indispensable article in the dress of an
oriental: it has various uses; but the principal one is to tuck up their
long flowing vestments, that they may not incommode them in their work,
or on a journey. The Jews, according to some writers, wore a double
girdle, one of greater breadth, with which they girded their tunic when
they prepared for active exertions: the other they wore under their
shirt, around their loins. This under girdle they reckon necessary to
distinguish between the heart and the less honourable parts of the human
frame. The upper girdle was sometimes made of leather, the material of
which the girdle of John the Baptist was made; but it was more commonly
fabricated of worsted, often very artfully woven into a variety of
figures, and made to fold several times about the body; one end of which
being doubled back, and sewn along the edges, serves them for a purse,
agreeably to the acceptation of ζώνη, in the Scriptures, which is
translated _purse_, in several places of the New Testament, Matt. x, 9;
Mark vi, 8. The ancient Romans, in this, as in many other things,
imitated the orientals; for their soldiers, and probably all classes of
the citizens, used to carry their money in their girdles. Whence, in
Horace, _qui zonam perdidit_, means one who had lost his purse; and
Aulus Gellius, C. Gracchus is introduced, saying, “Those girdles which I
carried out full of money when I went from Rome, I have, at my return
from the province, brought again empty.” The Turks make a farther use of
these girdles, by fixing their knives and poinards in them; while the
writers and secretaries suspend in them their ink-horns; a custom as old
as the Prophet Ezekiel, who mentions “a person clothed in white linen,
with an ink-horn upon his loins,” Ezek. ix, 2. That part of the
ink-holder which passes between the girdle and the tunic, and receives
their pens, is long and flat; but the vessel for the ink, which rests
upon the girdle, is square, with a lid to clasp over it.
2. To loose the girdle and give it to another was, among the orientals,
a token of great confidence and affection. Thus, to ratify the covenant
which Jonathan made with David, and to express his cordial regard for
his friend, among other things, he gave him his girdle. A girdle
curiously and richly wrought was among the ancient Hebrews a mark of
honour, and sometimes bestowed as a reward of merit; for this was the
recompense which Joab declared he meant to bestow on the man who put
Absalom to death: “Why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and
I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle,” 2 Samuel
xviii, 11. The reward was certainly meant to correspond with the
importance of the service which he expected him to perform, and the
dignity of his own station as commander in chief: we may, therefore,
suppose that the girdle promised was not a common one of leather, or
plain worsted, but of costly materials and richly adorned; for people of
rank and fashion in the east wear very broad girdles, all of silk, and
superbly ornamented with gold and silver, and precious stones, of which
they are extremely proud, regarding them as the tokens of their superior
station and the proof of their riches. “To gird up the loins” is to
bring the flowing robe within the girdle, and so to prepare for a
journey, or for some vigorous exercise.
oriental: it has various uses; but the principal one is to tuck up their
long flowing vestments, that they may not incommode them in their work,
or on a journey. The Jews, according to some writers, wore a double
girdle, one of greater breadth, with which they girded their tunic when
they prepared for active exertions: the other they wore under their
shirt, around their loins. This under girdle they reckon necessary to
distinguish between the heart and the less honourable parts of the human
frame. The upper girdle was sometimes made of leather, the material of
which the girdle of John the Baptist was made; but it was more commonly
fabricated of worsted, often very artfully woven into a variety of
figures, and made to fold several times about the body; one end of which
being doubled back, and sewn along the edges, serves them for a purse,
agreeably to the acceptation of ζώνη, in the Scriptures, which is
translated _purse_, in several places of the New Testament, Matt. x, 9;
Mark vi, 8. The ancient Romans, in this, as in many other things,
imitated the orientals; for their soldiers, and probably all classes of
the citizens, used to carry their money in their girdles. Whence, in
Horace, _qui zonam perdidit_, means one who had lost his purse; and
Aulus Gellius, C. Gracchus is introduced, saying, “Those girdles which I
carried out full of money when I went from Rome, I have, at my return
from the province, brought again empty.” The Turks make a farther use of
these girdles, by fixing their knives and poinards in them; while the
writers and secretaries suspend in them their ink-horns; a custom as old
as the Prophet Ezekiel, who mentions “a person clothed in white linen,
with an ink-horn upon his loins,” Ezek. ix, 2. That part of the
ink-holder which passes between the girdle and the tunic, and receives
their pens, is long and flat; but the vessel for the ink, which rests
upon the girdle, is square, with a lid to clasp over it.
2. To loose the girdle and give it to another was, among the orientals,
a token of great confidence and affection. Thus, to ratify the covenant
which Jonathan made with David, and to express his cordial regard for
his friend, among other things, he gave him his girdle. A girdle
curiously and richly wrought was among the ancient Hebrews a mark of
honour, and sometimes bestowed as a reward of merit; for this was the
recompense which Joab declared he meant to bestow on the man who put
Absalom to death: “Why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and
I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle,” 2 Samuel
xviii, 11. The reward was certainly meant to correspond with the
importance of the service which he expected him to perform, and the
dignity of his own station as commander in chief: we may, therefore,
suppose that the girdle promised was not a common one of leather, or
plain worsted, but of costly materials and richly adorned; for people of
rank and fashion in the east wear very broad girdles, all of silk, and
superbly ornamented with gold and silver, and precious stones, of which
they are extremely proud, regarding them as the tokens of their superior
station and the proof of their riches. “To gird up the loins” is to
bring the flowing robe within the girdle, and so to prepare for a
journey, or for some vigorous exercise.