Ouches (Hastings' Dictionary)

Ouche, like adder, apron, etc., be- longs to a group of words that in modern English have lost an initial n through a mistaken division —‘a nouche’ (cf. Chaucer, House of Fame, 1350, ‘They were set as thick as nouchis Fyne, of the est stones faire’) having become ‘an ouche.’ he term was applied to gold ornaments, particu- larly those of the nature of a clasp or brooch, set with jewels, 1.

The two large kan of shéham-stone (EV ‘onyx,’ RVm ‘beryl’) on the shoulders of the high priest’s ephod (see vol. i. p. 725%) were ‘set in ouches of gold’ (27) nisayn Ex 28"t- 39%), The word mishbézéth seems to denote a setting of open work in contradistinction to the method of setting jewels in a solid capsule of gold, and since it 1s derived from a root signifying ‘to weave or wreathe’ (see Dillm.

on Ex 28"), it may safely be taken as the technical term for filigree work, which was known to the Egyptian goldsmiths from very early times. The gold, as we are expressly informed in Ex 39%, was beaten out into thin sheets, which were cut up into narrow strips. These strips or wires, as we may them, were formed into elaborate gold filigree by means of a OUTLANDISH most delicate process of soldering (see Bliimner, Technologie, etc., der Gewerbe und Kiinste ber Griechern u. Rémern, iv. 250f.

, 316f.), and used as a setting to the jewels, the open nature of the work facilitating the attachment of the whole, presumably by the use of gold thread, to the fabric of the ephod. The same method of attachment b means of a setting of gold filigree (Ex 39%, R ‘enclosed in ouches of gold in their settings’) was adopted for the twelve jewels of the breastplate.

* The statement of Josephus that the jewels on the shoulder-straps of the ephod (termed by him ‘sardonyx stones’) served as agraffes or clasps to fasten the two ends of the straps (πορποῦσι δὲ τὴν ἐπωμίδα capdivuxes δύο. πρὸς τὸ ταῖς περονίσιν ἐπιτήδειον, x.7.A., Ant. III. vii. 5 [Niese, 8ὶ 1667), like several other statements of his in this paragraph, conflicts with P’s description of the ephod, and of the purpose of these jewels ‘as a memorial before ye 2.

In the description of the high priest’s BREAST- PLATE (vol. i. p. 3195) it was pointed out that the gold chains, by which the breastplate was held in position, ‘ were d over, or through, or other- wise attached to a couple of gold ornaments (AV ‘ouches,’ Ex 281% 14. 35 3016. 18) which had previously been fixed to the shoulder-pieces of the ephod in front.’ These ‘ouches’ (Heb.

as before, mish- bézéth) were also of open filigree work, and, if we can trust the Greek translators, had the shape of rosettes (ἀσπίδισκαι), one of the commonest ‘motives’ in ancient art, including architecture and embroidery. For these rosettes or ‘daisy + pattern’ see Perrot and Chipiez, Hist. of Art in Chaldea and Assyria, vol. i. 260 ff. [note jewelled bracelet, fig. 133, p. 305], and vol. ii. 332 ff, noting figs. 244, 250.

It is not improbable that the same pattern was followed in the setting of the jewels above described (under 4).t A. R. 5. KENNEDY.