p. 160 | Painting of the Eyes

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 12, 1867

Painting of the Eyes.

A KNOWLEDGE of the fact that women anciently painted their eyes, serves to throw light on many texts of scripture, as is shown by the following from Watson's Biblical and Theological Dictionary. It seems that allusion is made to the practice in Isa. iii, 22; hence we may yet see it revived as a part of the pride, extravagance, and luxury of our own day.

“Females used to paint their eyes. The substance used for this purpose is called in Chaldee cohol; by the LXX, stibi. Thus we read of Jezebel, 2 Kings ix, 30, that, understanding that Jehu was to enter Samaria, she decked herself for his reception, and (as in the original Hebrew) “put her eyes in paint.” This was in conformity to a custom which prevailed in the earliest ages. As large black eyes were thought the finest, the women, to increase their lustre, and to make them appear larger, tinged the corner of their eyelids with the impalpable powder of antimony or of black lead. This was supposed also to give to the eyes a brilliancy and humidity, which rendered them either sparkling or languishing, as suited the various passions. The method of performing this among the women in the eastern countries at the present day, as described by Russel, is by a cylindrical piece of silver or ivory, about two inches long, made very smooth, and about the size of a common probe; this is wet with water, and then dipped into a powder finely levigated, made from what appears to be a rich lead ore, and applied to the eye; the lids are closed upon it while it is drawn through between them. This blacks the inside, and leaves a narrow black rim all round the edge. That this was the method practised by the Hebrew women, we infer from Isaiah iii, 22, where the prophet, in his enumeration of the articles which composed the toilets of the delicate and luxurious daughters of Zion, mentions “the wimples and the crisping pins,” or bodkins for painting the eyes. The satirist Juvenal describes the same practice:—

“These with a tiring pin their eyebrows dye ’Till the full arch gives lustre to the eye.”

This custom is referred to by Jeremiah, iv, 30:—

“Though thou clothest thyself in scarlet, [gold, Though thou adornest thyself with ornaments of Though thou distendest thine eyes with paint, In vain shalt thou set forth thy beauty; Thy paramours have rejected thee.”

And Ezekiel, describing the irregularities of the Jewish nation, under the idea of a debauched woman, says, “Thou didst dress thine eyes with cohol;” which the Septuagint render, “Thou didst dress thine eyes with stibium.” Ezek. xxiii, 40.