What Did Swaddling Clothes Look Like

Swaddling clothes according to every commentator i have read were bands of cloth probably cotton not really clothes as in a garment.

What did swaddling clothes look like.

After an infant was born the umbilical cord was cut and tied and then the baby was washed rubbed with salt and oil and wrapped with strips of cloth. Meaning of the greek word swaddling clothes. Swaddling clothes described in the bible consisted of a cloth tied together by bandage like strips. The biblical passage that refers to swaddling clothes is luke 2.

Thus being wrapped in swaddling clothes even as an eternal heir apparent symbolizes and perhaps does so more than any other accoutrement of life one s entrance into full humanity. Indeed that the lord jehovah would become flesh as a helpless child and was swaddled like any other infant is an exquisite manifestation of his unfathomable. In ancient times like today a swaddled infant was safe if wrapped and watched properly. The phrase swaddling clothes is a translation of the root greek word sparganoo.

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in. The word appears in only two verses in the new testament and both times they appear in luke 2. The custom of the east was to wrap the new born in these strips of cloth after washing the body and anointing it in powdered salt. Cyril of jerusalem in the 4th century made this connection while commentating on the book of daniel.

Many cultures still practice swaddling today.