E. Tekhelet and Argaman in the Tabernacle

The first mention of Tekhelet and Argaman appears in Exodus.¹ In the first year after the Exodus from Egypt the Israelites are ordered by divine command through Moses to furnish materials for the construction of a sanctuary. “And the Lord spoke unto Moses saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they may bring me an offering;… And this is the offering which ye shall take from them: gold and silver and copper. And Tekhelet and Argaman, etc.” Argaman is generally explained as red purple. With regard to Tekhelet there is less consensus among translators and interpreters. While formerly it would be rendered by “blue purple,” since Hartman² the more prevailing tendency has been to explain it as denoting both violet and blue purple but chiefly the former. But whatever difference of opinion there may be about the respective shades, the tacit assumption is generally made that both Tekhelet and Argaman are varieties of purple, or, in other words, of stuff dyed with sea-snail pigment. That this great assumption is not questionable will be shown later.

The account of the construction of the Tabernacle of which the opening verses have just been quoted certainly presupposes as thorough an acquaintance on the part of the Israelites with Tekhelet and Argaman as with “gold” and “silver,” and as high an appreciation of these clothing stuffs as of the precious minerals. How is the phenomenon to be viewed in the light of what has previously been said with regard to purple in Egypt? No definite conclusion has been reached simply because in the present state of our knowledge the problem scarcely admits of a solution in the proper sense of the word. The critical theory of the composition of the Pentateuch would hardly countenance the bringing of the P’s account as evidence in this connection; it would simply return it with the usual remark: P is projecting into the past. The utmost that Higher Criticism might grant would probably be that at least contemporaneously with P purple had the same currency and high value in Egypt as in Babylonia or in Palestine, but even such a concession, meagre as it is, would be little short of an act of grace depending on the subjectivity of the critic. The general tendency in critical circles would perhaps be toanswer first in the negative the question with regard to purple in Pharaonic Egypt and then to take the regular occurrence of Tekhelet and Argaman in Exodus XXV as one more illustration of P’s projectional practices.

From the strictly scientific standpoint, however, no such procedure could be allowed. If the present instance offers nothing against the critical view, neither does it go to strengthen it. Granting that Egyptian taste and fashion about the time of the Exodus absolutely tabooed, as it were, purple in all its various shades, we would still scarcely be entitled to assume, in the absence of evidence, that such was the case among the foreign Semitic colonists; or, to speak more to the point, among the Hebrews, who probably from the remotest antiquity cherished a love for colour.³

That the Hebrews, during their sojourn in Egypt, lived in comparative seclusion out of close touch with the religion and inner life of the dominant race, we have first the direct evidence of the Torah and, next, indirect evidence from the fact of the Exodus itself; for if the Hebrews with their admittedly high capacity for adaptability had developed, on settling in Egypt as a small clan, a strong tendency towards assimilation with the natives, and had met with a reciprocating inclination on the part of the latter, then. I say, the sons of Israel would have become so completely merged in the sons of Ham in the course of over two centuries that an Exodus would have hardly taken place at all. Sane critics, of however radical a direction, will hardly venture to question the historicity of the sojourn and the Exodus.

Apart from these considerations, there is a certain document which makes it appear not unlikely that at least under Ramses II purple dyeing was practised in Egypt on a very large scale. I refer to papyrus Sallier No. 1 (Brit. Mus.) which has already been discussed under this aspect. Now it is generally agreed that Ramses II was the Pharaoh of the oppression and that his son and successor, Meremptah, was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.⁴

If the papyrus in question furnishes evidence of the flourishing of purple dyeing in Egypt in the days of Ramses II, that state of things did not probably go back to many centuries before, nor survive centuries after.

The name of Amenhophis IV is connected with a tremendous revolution in the religious life of Egypt. That pharaoh who has been called the heretic king established the worship of the Sun as the religion of his land to the exclusion of all other cults. Khu-naten, the official title assumed by Amenhophis IV, is generally explained as meaning “Glory of the Solar Disk.” His enthusiasm for the Sun-god was boundless.⁵ Egyptian art and luxury could hardly remain unaffected. May not this ardent devotion to the Sun have brought about the introduction of purple which owes its colour to the action of the sunrays, and which, as we know, was anciently regarded as the special favourite of the great source of light?⁶ “The purple dye delights in close contact with the Sun. His rays blazen it up, making its splendour greater and more brilliant,” etc. The ancients with their small knowledge of nature could not help attributing the photographic property of the purple liquid to the direct favour of the Sun. It is worth comparing, in this connection, the Phoenician belief associating purple with Astarte, the consort of Baal the Sun-god. The Phoenician priests of Baal were clothed in sumptuous purple garments. It was perhaps under Asiatico-Semitic influence that Amenhophis acted in setting up the Sun-god as the deity of his nation. If I remember aright, his mother was an Asiatic princess of Semitic origin. Asiatic influence would certainly promote the introduction of purple. But perhaps Amenhophis IV’s religious resolution was simply a determined return to the original Egyptian cult. The sun is the most ancient object of worship to be met with on the Egyptian monuments. Ra was venerated from the earliest times in the land of the Pyramids. In that case colour in general would come back to favour, if, as Ermann states, in the very early ages dyed garments were worn to a great extent. Purple would have a two-fold claim as “Queen of Colours” and as the favourite of the Sun.

Merenptah, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, is separated from Amenhophis IV by only an interval of some 130 years.

Perhaps this train of thought might help us to the understanding of the reference to dyeing in Papyrus Sillier No. 2, which, as we have seen, not improbably implies that purple dye was the dye par excellence in the days of Ramses II, the father of Merenptah.

The reaction against colour and the return to white linen need not have gone together with the undoing of Amenhophis IV’s work in the domain of religion which followed his death. This may have taken place later than Merenptah.