What Are Swaddling Clothes

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

What are swaddling clothes.

In the gospel of luke many small details are given about the birth of jesus. 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. On the night that jesus was born the angel told the shepherds that if they would go looking in bethlehem they would find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger luke 2 12. This detail can easily be passe.

Would they have to knock on every door in bethlehem to ask if a child was born. Swaddling clothes were bands of cloth probably cotton not really clothes as in a garment. 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. The word appears in only two verses in the new testament and both times they appear in luke 2.

These strips kept the newborn child warm and also ensured that the child s limbs would grow. Swaddling clothes described in the bible consisted of a cloth tied together by bandage like strips. The swaddling clothes could prefigure jesus burial the magis gift of myrrh in matthew 2 11 is a clearer bit of foreshadowing but the link can t be proved linguistically. And they went quickly and indeed found the babe lying in a manger luke 2 16 but here the swaddling clothes are not mentioned.

The first appearance of sparganoo occurs in verse 7 and the second is in verse 12. The custom of the east was to wrap the new born in these strips of cloth after washing the body and protecting the baby with the healing properties of powdered salt. The phrase swaddling clothes is a translation of the root greek word sparganoo. They would have to go around and ask everyone if they knew where the baby was born.

For example we read how mary wrapped him in swaddling clothes luke 2 7. If swaddling clothes were a common practice after the birth of a child how would this be a sign.