The Cracked Acorn: Dyes

Yes! I remember when I got gravy on the best tie given to me by my piano teacher. It happened again; a ballpoint pen in my shirt leaked at the wrong time. It was taken to the cleaners and asked to do their best.

My father, in the fifties, worked as a knitter in a hosiery mill, making seamed ladies’ nylons. When they came off the machine, they were white and had to be sent to the dyer. Here the hose was submerged in a vat for several hours to change the white to rose or beige or the latest colors that the market demanded. I was told that white nylon was the strongest and could be weakened by the dyes. Supposedly this art appeared in the Middle East about 5,000 years ago, and the word “dye” is an English word.

In Biblical times, garments of beautiful colors were very expensive, both for the cloth and for the dyes. A garment signified importance or elevation in respect. “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.” (Genesis 37:3,4)

The Egyptians were the masters of color, and the Hebrews may have brought this to perfection when the tabernacle was built. The Lord told them to “make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, purple, and scarlet” (Exodus 26:1),

“And they shall take gold, and blue, and scarlet, and fine linen. And they shall make the ephod of gold, of blue, of purple, of scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cunning work.” (Exodus 28:5,6) and in the vail “And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fined twined linen of cunning work,” (Exodus 26:31) This vail was torn when Christ was crucified. (Matthew 27:51)

Purple was seen as a royal color, and desirable to buy, one of Paul’s converts at Thyatira was Lydia, a seller of purple.

Today, all these wonderful and bright colors are easily found on all our clothing. Some translators have attached meanings to certain colors, such as, WHITE-purity and innocence; BLACK-mourning, affliction, and calamity; RED-bloodshed; PURPLE-royalty, luxury; BLUE-deity, sky, and heaven; SCARLET-war, valor; GREEN-life, youth, and abundance. The red, white, and blue are in our flag.

The book of Esther is a “colorful” book of the Bible and worth reading and re-reading, especially the description of the palace of King Ahasuerus.

Our hymnal has two songs that reflect color. BEAUTIFUL ROBES OF white, and BEHOLD A STRANGER AT THE DOOR! ‘Tis HE, With garments dyed at Calvary.

For gentlemen who still wear ties -remember it was said, “If your children see you get a spot on your tie, they’ll send you to a nursing home!” Cure: wear bow ties!

May the good Lord bless an’ keep you, Whether near or far away. May you find that long-awaited, Golden day today . . . May your troubles all be small ones, And your fortune ten times ten, May the good lord bless and keep you, ‘Til we meet again . . .