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.

Many cultures still practice swaddling today. 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. Other saints saw the swaddling clothes connected to jesus second coming at the end of time. 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.

Cyril of jerusalem in the 4th century made this connection while commentating on the book of daniel. In ancient times like today a swaddled infant was safe if wrapped and watched properly. These strips kept the newborn child warm and also ensured that the child s limbs would grow. 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.

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. 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. 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.

Meaning of the greek word swaddling clothes.