No where does Holy Writ, old or new, tell anything of silk but in one single place, the Apocalypse, xviii. 12. True it is that, in the English authorized version, we read of “silk” as if spoken of by Ezekiel, xvi. 10, 13; and again, in Proverbs, xxxi. 22; yet there can be no doubt, but that in both these passages, the word silk is wrong through the translators misunderstanding the original Hebrew משי (meschi). Of this word, Parkhurst says: “As a noun, משי, according to our translation (is) silk, but not so rendered in any of the ancient versions. _Silk_ would indeed well enough answer the ideal meaning of the Hebrew word, from its being _drawn forth_ from the bowels of the silk-worm, and that to a degree of fineness, so as to form very slender threads. But I meet with no evidence that the Israelites in very early times (and to these Ezekiel refers) had any knowledge of _silk_, much less of the manner in which it was formed; משי, therefore, I think, means some kind of _fine linen_ or _cotton cloth_, so denominated from the _fineness_ with which the threads whereof it consisted were _drawn out_. The Vulgate, by rendering it in the former passage, ‘subtilibus’ _fine_, as opposed to _coarse_, has nearly preserved the true idea of the Hebrew.”[20] Braunius, too, no mean authority, after bestowing a great deal of study on the matter, gives it as his well-weighed judgment that, throughout the whole Hebrew Bible, no mention whatever can be found of silk, which was a material utterly unknown to the children of Israel.[21] Once only is silk spoken of in the New Testament, and then while St. John[22] is reckoning it up along with the gold, and silver, and precious stones, and pearls, and fine linen--byssus--and purple which, with many other costly freights merchants were wont to bring in ships to that mighty city which, in the Apostle’s days, ruled over the kings of the earth. [20] Hebrew and English Lexicon. London, 1813, p. 415. [21] De Vestitu Heb. Sac., lib. I. cap. viii. § 8. [22] Apoc. xviii. 12. Long after the days of Ezekiel was it that silk, in its raw form only, made up into hanks, first found its way to Egypt, western Asia, and eastern Europe.