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Bible Dictionaries
Glass, Looking-Glass, Mirror
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or GLASS, LOOKING-GLASS, MIRROR . This indispensable article of a lady’s toilet is first met with in Exodus 38:8 , where the ‘laver of brass’ and its base are said to have been made of the ‘mirrors (AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘looking-glasses’) of the serving women which served at the door of the tent of meeting’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). This passage shows that the mirrors of the Hebrews, like those of the other peoples of antiquity, were made of polished bronze, as is implied in the comparison, Job 37:18 , of the sky to a ‘molten mirror’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] and AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘looking-glass’). A different Hebrew word is rendered ‘hand mirror’ by RV [Note: Revised Version.] in the list of toilet articles, Isaiah 3:23 . The fact that this word denotes a writing ‘tablet’ in Isaiah 8:1 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) perhaps indicates that in the former passage we have an oblong mirror in a wooden frame. The usual shape, however, of the Egyptian (see Wilkinson, Anc. Egyp. ii. 350 f. with illust.), as of the Greek, hand-mirrors was round or slightly oval. As a rule they were furnished with a tang, which fitted into a handle of wood or metal, often delicately carved. Two specimens of circular mirrors of bronze, one 5 inches, the other 4 1 / 2, in diameter, have recently been discovered in Philistine (?) graves at Gezer ( PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] , 1905, 321; 1907, 199 with illusts.).
In the Apocrypha there is a reference, Sir 12:11 , to the rust that gathered on these metal mirrors, and in Wis 7:26 the Divine wisdom is described as ‘the unspotted mirror of the power of God,’ the only occurrence in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] of ‘mirror,’ which RV [Note: Revised Version.] substitutes for ‘glass’ throughout. The NT references, finally, are those by Paul (1 Corinthians 13:12 , 2 Corinthians 3:18 ) and by James ( James 1:23 ). For the ‘sea of glass’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘glassy sea’) of Revelation 4:6; Revelation 15:2 see art. Sea of Glass.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Glass, Looking-Glass, Mirror'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/g/glass-looking-glass-mirror.html. 1909.
