Caul
Caul
(יוֹתֶרֶת, yothe´reth, properly a redundant part, i.e. flap, Ex 29:13,22; Levit. in, 4, 10, 15; 4:9; 7:4; 8:16, 25; 9:10, 19) is, according to the Septuagint and Vulgate, the great lobe of the liver; the margin of our version says, "It seemeth by anatomy and the Hebrew doctors to be the midriff." The word might be rendered the lobe over the liver, although it makes a part of the liver itself, and this appears to be more applicable than the net over the liver, termed the lesser omentum. SEE LIVER. In Ho 13:8, the Hebrews word rendered "caul" of the heart is סגוֹר(segor´, literally enclosed), and means the pericardium, or parts about the heart.
The term translated "cauls" in Isa 3:18 (שׁבַיסַים, shebisim´, literally nettings, Sept. ἐμπλόκια) was perhaps a cap of network worn by females. The caps of network in the accompanying wood-cut are from a relief in the British Museum, representing singers and harpists welcoming Sennacherib on his return from conquest. Fig. 1 has the hair curiously arranged. but perhaps not in a caul. There is also in the British Museum a real cap of network for the hair, from Thebes, the meshes of which are very fine. SEE HEADDRESS. As to the true meaning in this passage, the versions give but little assistance. The Sept. renders ἐμπλόκια "plaited work," to which κοσύμβους, "fringes," appears to have been added originally as a gloss, and afterwards to have crept into the text. Aquila has τελαμῶνας, "belts." The Targum merely adopts the Hebrew word without translating it, and the Syriac and Arabic vaguely render it "their ornaments." It occurs but once, and its root is not elsewhere found in Hebrew. The Rabbinical commentators connect it with שַׁבֵּוֹ, shibbets´, rendered "embroider" in Ex 28:39, but properly "to woIk in squares, make checker-work." So Kimchi (Lex. s.v.) explains shebisim as "the name of garments wrought in checker-work." Rashi says they are "a kind of network to adorn the head." Abarbanel is more full; he describes them as "head-dresses made of silk or gold thread, with which the women bound their heads about, and they were of checker-work." The word occurs again in the Mishna (Kelim, 28:10), but nothing can possibly be inferred from the passage itself, and the explanations of the commentators do not throw much light upon it. It there appears to be used as part of a network worn as a head-dress by women. Bartenora says it was "a figure which they made upon the network for ornament, standing in front of it, and going round from one ear to the other." Schroeder (De Vest. Mul. cap. 2) conjectured that they were medallions worn on the necklace, and identified them with the Arab shomaiseh, the diminutive of shams, the sun, which is applied to denote the sun-shaped ornaments worn by Arab women about their necks. But to this Gesenius very properly objects (Jesa. 1:209), as well as to the explanation of Jahn (Archäol. 1, 2:2 139), who renders the word "gauze veils" (Smith, s.v.). Others understand golden ornaments appended to braids of the hair behind (see Kitto's Daily Illustration in loc.). The hair of Oriental women is usually divided into a number of braids or tresses, which fall down upon the back, and to each of which is added three silken threads, each charged with small ornaments in gold, and terminating in small coins of the same metal (see Kitto, Pict. Bible in loc.; Lane, Mod. Eg. 1:59, 60; 2:409, 410). SEE ORNAMENT.
