Snow

Snow in the Bible is mostly a picture of whiteness. The most loved example is God’s invitation in Isaiah 1:18: “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” David prays in a similar way in Psalm 51:7, asking to be washed until he is “whiter than snow.” Lamentations remembers a people once “purer than snow.” Job, by contrast, knows that no washing in “snow water” can make his own hands clean, and he says so to God honestly. Across these verses snow means purity, and the Bible asks whose hands can give it.

5 verses

Job

Job 6:16

Which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid:

Job 9:30

If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;

Psalms

Psalms 51:7

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Isaiah

Isaiah 1:18

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Lamentations

Lamentations 4:7

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

Common in Palestine in winter (Ps. 147:16). The snow on the tops of the Lebanon range is almost always within view throughout the whole year. The word is frequently used figuratively by the sacred writers (Job 24:19; Ps. 51:7; 68:14; Isa. 1:18). It is mentioned only once in the historical books (2 Sam. 23:20). It was “carried to Tyre, Sidon, and Damascus as a luxury, and labourers sweltering in the hot harvest-fields used it for the purpose of cooling the water which they drank (Prov. 25:13; Jer. 18:14). No doubt Herod Antipas, at his feasts in Tiberias, enjoyed also from this very source the modern luxury of ice-water.”

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From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

This historical books of the Bible contain only two notices of snow actually falling -- (2 Samuel 23:20) 1Macc 13:22; but the allusions in the poetical books are so numerous that there can be no doubt as to its being an ordinary occurrence in the winter months. (Psalms 147:16; 148:8) The snow lies deep in the ravines of the highest ridge of Lebanon until the summer is far advanced and indeed never wholly disappears; the summit of Hermon also perpetually glistens with frozen snow. From these sources probably the Jews obtained their supplies of ice for the purpose of cooling their beverages in summer. (Proverbs 25:13) The liability to snow must of course vary considerably in a country of such varying altitude as Palestine. At Jerusalem snow often falls to the depth of a foot or more in january or February, but it seldom lies. At Nazareth it falls more frequently and deeply,a nd it has been observed to fall even in the maritime plain of Joppa and about Carmel.