Isaiah 3:20
The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,
The bonnets,.... This word is used sometimes for the tire of the heads of men, Ezekiel 24:17 and even for the bonnets of the priests, Exodus 39:28. The Targum renders the word "crowns"; the Jewish women wore golden crowns on their heads, in the form of the city of Jerusalem, with which they might not go out on a sabbath day {b}:
and the ornaments of the legs; and so the Targum,
"the chains or bracelets of the feet;''
with which Jarchi and Kimchi agree; but the word is used for a bracelet on the arm in 2 Samuel 1:10 and Aben Ezra so interprets it here:
and the headbands: the, word is rendered "attire" in Jeremiah 2:32 according to Jarchi, they were short binders with which the hair was bound up, and some of them were wrought with gold; but with Aben Ezra they were binders about the neck or throat:
and the tablets; in the Hebrew text, "the houses of the soul" {c}; and were, as Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi think, ornaments which women hung between their breasts on the heart, or over against it; they seem rather to be smelling bottles, as the Vulgate Latin version renders the words, which they carried in their bosoms to refresh the spirits, and fetch back the soul or breath when fainting and almost gone; the Targum renders it "earrings", by which we render the following:
and the earrings; so Jarchi and Kimchi, who suggest they are so called because the ear is the place where whispering and muttering is used, which this word has the signification of; but, according to Aben Ezra, they were writings written in gold, and silver, by way of enchantment or charm; and the Arabic version renders the word, "boxes of amulets" or "charms"; the word signifies enchantments, see Psalms 58:5.
{b} Maimon. & Bartenora in ib.
{c} vpnh ytb "domos animae", i.e. "olfactoriola", Cocceius; so V. L.