Linen

And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles, Revelation 15:6.

Linen is a precious cloth that even the angels in heaven wear. Recently, Miss Pamela Wolfram, a faithful member of the Black Creek Baptist Church sent me her research about the process for making linen. It starts with Flax. I greatly enjoyed her explanation of how linen is made and I think that her observations about the spiritual significance of flax and linen is spot on.

All of the following is from Miss Pam.

Flax: The process is difficult, hard work, dirty, and time consuming. The seeds are planted in the spring. If they have been sown thickly, there are few useless branches. An old rule states that five seeds should be sown in the space that would be covered by a man’s thumb. When it is grown for seed, one bushel per acre is used, allowing the plant to branch and produce more grain.

Before it matures, it is pulled from the ground roots and all, in order to have the maximum length of fiber. Seeds are removed and dried, a process called rippling. It is submerged in a pond in order to rot the useless part of the plant. When dry, a flax brake is used to start the process of separating the line fibers from the shivers or core and bark. A large bundle is laid at the hinged or wider end of the brake; the upper teeth mesh with the lower and come down with a bang upon the flesh which is struck as it gradually moves to the smaller end.

One can see this would do rather a thorough job breaking the useless part, which was often used to fill the straw tick of the trundle bed. The remains are then scutched or swingled to remove more broken shives from the tough line fiber. A man grasps a bunch of flax and holds it over the boards and proceeds to beat it with a scutching knife to remove still more of the useless part. This makes it finer.

Lastly, the fibers are drawn through a hackle thereby straightening, cleaning and separating the line fiber from the short flax fiber or tow. The hackle is a set of pointed teeth set closely together on a stout board. These vary in the fineness of the set, and a series of as many as five determine the resulting linen. The remaining tow is spun into a rope, cord, or coarse thread for a type of burlap. When the flax first hits the teeth, the tangles and knots cause the metal to make a ringing sound.

With one who is adept at this chore, the noise soon goes, leaving a hiss as the fiber is drawn through the teeth. The tress which comes from the hackle is then braided and resembles a pigtail which it is called. It is now ready for the spinner to place upon the distaff.

After the flax has been spun it is ready to place on the loom. In early times the warp or longitudinal threads were held between tow sticks or logs which held them taut. The loom was then held vertically. Sticks were manipulated to control the threads for weaving. Fingers or combs compacted the threads. This type of loom dates back to 5000 B.C. in Egypt.

(Information is from The Textile Tools of Colonial Homes by Marion L. Channing pages 12-14,43.)

Do you see what I see in this description? The flax is submerged in a pond and then taken out. To me this shows the baptism or the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The flax goes through being struck and the useless part of the plant is beaten. This shows Jesus being struck and beaten just before going to the cross. What do you think?

The linen is divided into four categories: linen, twined linen, fine linen, and fine twined linen. Let’s take a look at each of these and how it is done. Proverbs 31:19 “She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.” This verse confused me. It has the woman holding with two hands both the spindle and the distaff.

When I took the class in how to spin yarn, on the last day our instructor brought a flax spinning wheel. The distaff was attached to the spinning wheel and draped with the flax. A flax wheel is one that you use your foot to make the wheel go around. It automatically pulls the spun flax onto the spindle. The spinner needs to have her hands wet to take the flax off the distaff and feed it onto the spindle. That is easier said than done! The wheel takes up the flax very quickly. I couldn’t keep up and the flax I was spinning broke off and tangled on the distaff.

I know these are all foreign words. In biblical times they would not be using a flax spinning wheel. They would be using the distaff and the spindle. I couldn’t understand how she could hold both the spindle and the distaff and be able to feed the flax onto the spindle and have wet hands. I went on You Tube, typed in How to spin flax with a handheld spindle. I found just what I was looking for.

This video will help you visualize what I am describing. It also shows what fine linen looks like. I was amazed at how thin the linen thread was! It would be the fine linen in the Bible. When the woman spinning this held up a card showing the difference in the flax being spun, hers was the finest. At the top of the card was stronger spun linen thread. I think that that would be considered linen. The fine twined linen or the twined linen is when you take what you have spun and place 2 or more linen threads twisted together to make it stronger. I found it interesting that Jesus was wrapped in linen when He died.

I read these verses this morning. I had a much deeper understanding as to what it was saying.

Ezekiel 44:15; But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the lord God:

Ezekiel 44:16; They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep m charge.

Ezekiel 44:17; And it shall come to pass that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them, whiles they minister in the gates on the inner court, and within.

Ezekiel 44:18; They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with anything that causeth sweat.

Ezekiel 44:19; And when they go forth into the utter court, even into the utter court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments.