LAMED. She is not afraid of the snow for her household. "Show," says Dr. Geikie ('Holy Land,' 2.58), "covers the streets of Jerusalem two winters in three, but it generally comes in small quantities, and soon disappears.
Yet there are sometimes very snowy winters. That of 1879, for example, left behind it seventeen inches of snow, even where there was no drift, and the strange spectacle of snow lying unmelted for two or three weeks was seen in the hollows on the hillsides.
Thousands of years have wrought no change in this aspect of the winter months, for Bennaiah, one of David's mighty men, 'slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of snow' (2 Samuel 23:20)." She has no fears concerning the comfort and health of her family even in the severest winter.
For all her household are clothed with scarlet; with warm garments. The word used is שָׁנִים (shanim), derived from a verb meaning "to shine," and denoting a crimson or deep scarlet colour. This colour was supposed, and rightly, to absorb and retain heat, as white to repel it; being made of wool, the garments would be warm as well as stately in appearance.
St. Jerome has duplicibus (shenaim), "with double garments," i.e. with one over the other. Warm garments were the more necessary as the only means of heating rooms was the introduction of portable chafing dishes containing bunting charcoal (see Jeremiah 36:22, etc).
The Septuagint has taken liberties with the text, "Her husband is not anxious concerning domestic matters when he tarries anywhere [ χρονίζη for which Delitzsch suggests χιονίζ], for all her household are well clothed."
Spiritually, the Church fears not the severity of temptation or the chill of unbelief, when her children take refuge in the blood of Christ.