Attire; Dyed Attire

a-tir': "Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?" asks the prophet Jeremiah in hot remonstrance against Israel's unfaithfulness. "Yet," saith Yahweh, "my people have forgotten me" (2:32). "And I saw that she was defiled," cries Ezekiel against Jerusalem; "she saw men ... girded with girdles upon their loins, with flowing turbans [AV exceeding in dyed attire] upon their heads, ..... after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, .... and .... she doted upon them .... "(Eze 23:13-16). "And, behold, there met him," says the author of Prov (Pr 7:10) in his description of the "strange woman," that "lieth in wait at every street corner," "a woman with the attire of a harlot, and wily of heart," whose "house is the way to Sheol" (Pr 7:27). These passages show how diversely and elastically the term "attire" was used among the Hebrews. The numerous synonyms for "dress," "attire," "apparel," "clothes," "raiment," "garment," etc., found in English Versions of the Bible, reflect a similar wealth of nomenclature in the original Hebrew and Greek; but the lack of exactness and consistency in the renderings of translators makes the identification of the various articles of dress referred to very difficult, sometimes impossible.

See DRESS.

George B. Eager