Cloth and thread turn up in odd places in Scripture. Solomon’s merchants bought horses out of Egypt and “linen yarn” at a price. Isaiah speaks of those who work fine flax and weave networks. The priest’s robe was to have a woven binding around its neckhole so that it would not tear. Samson’s hair was fastened into a loom’s web, and two soldiers, in David’s day, faced giants whose spears were like a weaver’s beam. None of these passages is about thread itself. They simply show how ordinary the craft of weaving was, and how easily writers reached for it when they described trade, worship and battle.
6 verses
And there shall be an hole in the top of it, in the midst thereof: it shall have a binding of woven work round about the hole of it, as it were the hole of an habergeon, that it be not rent.
And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awaked out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web.
And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn: the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price.
And he slew an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits high; and in the Egyptian's hand was a spear like a weaver's beam; and he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and slew him with his own spear.
Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
Found only in 1 Kings 10:28, 2 Chr. 1:16. The Heb. word mikveh, i.e., “a stringing together,” so rendered, rather signifies a host, or company, or a string of horses. The Authorized Version has: “And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn: the king’s merchants received the linen yarn at a price;” but the Revised Version correctly renders: “And the horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt; the king’s merchants received them in droves, each drove at a price.”
William Smith, 1884
The notice of yarn is contained in an extremely obscure passage in (1 Kings 10:28; 2 Chronicles 1:16) The Hebrew Received Text is questionable. Gesenius gives the sense of "number" as applying equally to the merchants and the horses: "A band of the king’s merchants bought a drove (of horses) at a price."