Ezekiel 27:7

7. Fine linen R.V., “Of fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was thy sail, that it might be to thee for an ensign” (or, “cabin,” Davidson). An ancient sail of this kind, made of separate pieces tied together, and hauling up like a Venetian blind, can now be seen in the Liverpool museum (W ilkinson, 2:213 N.). Cecil Torr ( Ancient Ships, 1894) gives pictures of ancient Phoenician ships, 700 B.C., with one mast and one yard carrying a square sail. This sail is formed of many pieces as also in an Athenian ship, 600 B.C. He shows that the sails of this era were generally of linen, though sometimes of the fiber of papyrus or of flax. They were often colored, vermilion being generally the badge of an admiral or monarch. In an Egyptian sail 600 B.C. several different colors are used. These ships had animals carved on the prows for figureheads and quite generally a huge eye “to see her way” says Torr; but more probably to guard her from the evil eye of the demons of the deep. On broidered work, see Ezekiel 16:10.

Blue and purple, etc. R.V., “blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was thine awning.” This awning (literally, covering) may have been a cabin the sides and roof of which were composed of colored linen (Davidson). In the most ancient descriptions of a ship (see note Ezekiel 27:4) there is mention of a cabin.

The isles of Elishah must have some close connection with the son of Javan (Genesis 10:4). Movers identifies Elishah with Carthage because of Elissa, its founder. Dillmann locates it in South Italy. Sayce (Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible, 1898), because of a Tel-el-Amarna letter from the king of Alasia (Egyptian, Alsa), locates it closer to the Mediterranean coast, possibly Cyprus. But this was not the usual name for Cyprus, and Thothmes III includes Alsa among his Syrian conquests. It seems better to say, as the dye was common in many parts of the Mediterranean, that this is probably a term referring to the isles of Greece or some one of its colonies. This dye, which cannot now be obtained, cost one hundred denarii (over twenty dollars) a pound in the last days of the Roman republic.