the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Black
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Although the Orientals do not wear black in mourning, they, as did the ancient Jews, regard the color as a symbol of affliction, disaster, and privation. In fact, the custom of wearing black in mourning is a sort of visible expression of what is in the East a figure of speech. In Scripture blackness is used as symbolical of afflictions occasioned by drought find famine (Job 30:30; Jeremiah 14:2; Lamentations 4:8; Lamentations 5:10).
In connection with this subject it may be marked that black is studiously avoided in dress by all Orientals, except in certain garments of hair or wool, which are naturally of that color. Black is also sometimes imposed as a mark of humiliating distinction by dominant nations upon subject or tributary tribes, the most familiar instance of which is the obligation laid upon the Jews in Turkey of wearing black turbans.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Black'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/b/black.html.
