Cloth tells its own quiet story here. Silk is named just once in these verses, in the portrait of the capable wife: “her clothing is silk and purple” (Proverbs 31:22). Nearly everything else is fine linen: the tabernacle curtains, the robes Pharaoh puts on Joseph, the cloth a man buys to wrap the body of Jesus. In Revelation, “the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.” Clean cloth becomes a picture of a clean life. Start with Exodus 26 for the curtains, then Revelation 19.
12 verses
And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck;
And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair,
Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.
Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn: the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price.
She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.
And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar.
And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.
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.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
Heb. demeshek, “damask,” silk cloth manufactured at Damascus, Amos 3:12. A.V., “in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch;” R.V., “in the corner of a couch, and on the silken cushions of a bed” (marg., “in Damascus on a bed”).
Heb. meshi, (Ezek. 16:10, 13, rendered “silk”). In Gen. 41:42 (marg. A.V.), Prov. 31:22 (R.V., “fine linen”), the word “silk” ought to be “fine linen.”
Silk was common in New Testament times (Rev. 18:12).
William Smith, 1884
The only undoubted notice of silk in the Bible occurs in (Revelation 18:12) where it is mentioned among the treasures of the typical Babylon. It is however, in the highest degree probable that the texture was known to the Hebrews from the time that their commercial relations were extended by Solomon. The well-known classical name of the substance does not occur in the Hebrew language.