Verse 30
30. A specimen of abortive labour. Snow water was regarded by the ancients as possessed of peculiarly cleansing power. Thus Petronius, (in Satyr:) “We reclined at table, the boys having poured snow water upon our hands.” In the fable of Lockman, the black man rubs his body with snow in order to make it white. Mohammed prays, “Lord, wash me from my sins, white with water, snow, and ice.”
Never so clean Literally, Clean with lye. בור , bor, was a vegetable salt, obtained from the ashes of the kali, a plant still found in Arabia. Our word, alkali, (Arabic,) the kali, is derived from this plant. Comp. Jeremiah 2:22. Among the earliest prayers of the Vedas we find the recognition of man’s moral defilement: “Purifying waters cleanse from me whatever is impure or criminal; every evil I have done by violence, by imprecations, by injustice.” Rig Veda, 1:38. (See HARDWICK, Chrisi and Other Masters, 1:183.)
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