Yarn, Linen

Narrator: Chris Genthree

• 1 min. read • grade level: 8

Mentioned in the AV only in 1 Kings 10:28²⁸And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn: the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price. (1 Kings 10:28) and 2 Chron. 1:16¹⁶And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn: the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price. (2 Chronicles 1:16), as being brought out of Egypt; but as “horses” are mentioned just before and just after, it is improbable that “linen yarn” is intended. The Masoretic punctuation makes the above two passages different from any other occurrences. Many Jewish interpreters translate “a web,” and the LXX, Vul., Syr., and Arab versions treat it as a proper name. The passage as translated in the RV—similarly to what it had been previously translated by others—reads “And the horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt; and the king's merchants received them in ‘droves,’ each ‘drove’ at a price.” This is no doubt the best translation. The Hebrew word is miqve, or miqveh.