Exodus 2:1-4 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.… The bulrush is the papyrus, or paper reed, of the ancients. It grows in marshy places, and was once most abundant on the banks of the Nile; but now that the river has been opened to commerce, it has disappeared, save in a few unfrequented spots. It is described as having "an angular stem from three to six feet high, though occasionally it grows to the height of fourteen feet; it has no leaves; the flowers are in very small spikelets, which grow in thread-like, flowering branchlets, which form a bushy crown to each stem." It was used for many purposes by the Egyptians — as, for example, for shoes, baskets, vessels of different sorts, and boats; but it was especially valuable as famishing the material corresponding to our paper, on which written communication could be made. To obtain this last fibre, the course exterior rind was taken off, and then with a needle the thin concentric layers of the inner cuticle, sometimes to the number of twenty to a single plant, were removed. These were afterward joined together with a mixture of flour, paste, and glue; and a similar layer of strips being laid crosswise in order to strengthen the fabric, the whole sheet was subjected to pressure, dried in the sun, beaten with a mallet, and polished with ivory. When completed and written over, the sheets were united into one, and rolled on a slender wooden cylinder. Thus was formed a book, and the description of the process gives the etymology and primal significance of our ownword "volume." (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.WEB: A man of the house of Levi went and took a daughter of Levi as his wife. |
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