Ver. 8.—Of the looking-glasses of the women. This interesting fact has not been previously mentioned. Bronze plates, circular or oval, admitting of a high polish, were used by the Egyptian women as mirrors from a very early date, and may be seen in the Egyptian collection of the British Museum. They have handles like those of our firescreens, generally also of bronze. It was natural that the Hebrew women should possess similar articles, and should have taken care to bring them with them out of Egypt The sacrifice of them for a sacred purpose is rather to be ascribed to their own self-denying piety than to any command issued by Moses (Spencer). Which assembled. Literally, “who came by troops.” Women assembled themselves by troops at the entrance of the “tent of meeting” set up by Moses (ch. 33:7), as at a later date we find Hannah (1 Sam. 1:9–12) and other women who were less worthy (ib. 2:22) doing. The women who showed this zeal were those that made the sacrifice of their mirrors for God’s service. There is no reason to suppose (with Hengstenberg and others) that they constituted a regular “order.”
The Pulpit Commentary: Exodus Vol. II, ed. H. D. M. Spence-Jones (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2004), 389.
of the women assembling … at the door—not priestesses but women of pious character and influence, who frequented the courts of the sacred building (Lu 2:37), and whose parting with their mirrors, like the cutting the hair of the Nazarites, was their renouncing the world for a season [Hengstenberg].
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, A. R. Fausset et al., A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments, On Spine: Critical and Explanatory Commentary. (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), Ex 38:8.
