ETHUN (nr.,1.3) occurs in Prov. vii. 16, in con nection with Egypt, and as a product of that country. It is translated fine linen of Egypt, in the A. V. As Egypt was from very early times celebrated for its cultivation of flax and manufacture of linen, there can be little doubt that ethun is correctly rendered, though some have thought that it may signify rope or string of Egypt, funis iEgyptius," funis salignus v. intubaceus ;' but Celsius (Hierobot. ii. p. 89) observes, Ethun non funem, sed linum et linteum esse, clamat grwca vox dthivn vel bObvtoo, Guam ab ethan esse deducendam.' So Mr. Yates, in his Tex/I-mum Antiquorum, p. 265, says of (386v1), that `it was in all probability an Egyptian word, adopted by the Greeks to denote the commodity to which the Egyptians themselves applied it.' For ilUN, put into Greek letters, and with Greek terminations, becomes Morn and 606rzov. Ilesychius states, no doubt correctly, `that dOovn was applied by the Greeks to any fine and thin cloth, though not of linen.' Mr. Yates further adduces from ancient Scholia that (306vae were made both of flax and of wool ; and also that the silks of India are called 606v aL o-npLKal by the author of the Periplus of the Erythra'an Sea. In the same work it is shewn that the name 606mov was applied to cloths exported from Cutch, Ougein, and Baroach, and which must have been made of cotton. Mr. Yates
moreover observes, that though like atvdaw, originally denoted linen, yet we find them both applied to cotton cloth. As the manufacture of linen extended itself into other countries, and as the exports of India became added to those of Egypt, all varieties, either of linen or cotton cloth, wherever woven, came to be designated by the originally Egyptian names and f :Am.
In the N. T. the word debzuor occurs in John xix. 40—' Then took they the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes' (60oplozs); in the parallel passage, Matt. xxvii. 59, the term used is civS6m, as also in Mark xv. 46, and in Luke xxiii. 53. We meet with it again in John xx. 5, ' and he stooping down saw the linen clothes lying.' It is generally used in the plural to denote `linen band ages.' 0067ni occurs in Acts x. ii, `and (Peter) saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descend ing unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth,' and also in xi. 5, where this passage is repeated.
From the preceding observations it is evident that 606noy may signify cloth made either of linen or cotton, but most probably the former, as it was more common than cotton in Syria and Egypt [SHESH].—J. F. R.