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SECTION IX.

SHE PERCEIVETH THAT HER MERCHANDISE IS GOOD; HER CANDLE GOETH NOT OUT BY NIGHT.

rom the regular and constant industry for which the excellent woman is commended, it is evident that the work which she wrought, or which she superintended, would be of a good and valuable description. Diligence and perseverance in any pursuit give skill and taste in its performance, and enable the worker to excel one who is little interested in his work. Such a matron would, in time, become known and confided in for promptness and regularity, and for durable and beautiful workmanship; and, as Boothroyd renders the passage, "would see that her traffic is profitable." The tapestry, and girdles, and garments, all carefully woven and beautifully ornamental, would not disappoint the purchaser, who expected them, perhaps, to last a lifetime; and the maker would soon gain an established reputation among

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those who bought, and thus in every way her merchandise would be good.

"If

Archbishop Cranmer renders this verse: she perceives that her merchandise is good, her candle goeth not out by night." This might signify, that if, on any particular occasion, this Jewish lady saw some desirable object of purchase, she and her maidens would work long and diligently, even till night was far advanced, in order to procure it in exchange for her manufactures. Be that as it may, however, it is no uncommon thing, either in our own or other lands, for those engaged in manufactures to fulfil any large order by occasionally spending even a part of the night in its execution. In those eastern dwellings in which stuffs are made, there is great attention to business; and it sometimes occurs, that not only a busy group work from before the dawn till day is over, but that parties of workers are employed through the night, one party rising to work when the other retires to repose.

Dr. Clarke suggests that this burning of the lamp, however, implies rather a careful vigilance than a perpetual industry in the Hebrew mistress. He suggests that it was probably burned on account

of the numerous banditti and lawless men, from various wandering tribes, who might come suddenly and endanger the family during the hours of darkness; and this caution to avert an ill, rather than to suffer it, well corresponds with the general character given by the description of the poem.

It appears to have been a very common practice among the ancient Hebrews, as it is now with nations of the East, for careful persons to burn a lamp by night in their dwellings. Candles are not burned in any oriental country, and therefore the word thus rendered refers to the lamp, of which we have so many notices in Scripture. Even as early as the time of Abraham we find a "burning lamp" mentioned, which appeared to him as a revelation from God. Gideon, when he led out his men against the host of Midian, bade them take their lamps in their pitchers; and from these early records of patriarchal times, even to the days of those whose pens concluded the pages of Holy Writ, we find the lamp and the oil continually referred to. Lamps were used in the tabernacle, and at marriage festivals were hung around the room, and cast down their light from above. Herodotus

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