FINE
fin (adj., from Latin finire, "to finish"):

Indicates superior quality. Only in a few instances does "fine" represent a separate word: (1) Tobh, "good," qualifies gold (2Ch 3:5,8, "fine gold"; compare Ge 2:12, "good"); fine gold (La 4:1, the King James Version "most fine gold," the Revised Version (British and American) "most pure gold," literally, "good fine gold"), copper (Ezr 8:27, the Revised Version (British and American) "fine bright brass"); Tabh, Aramaic (Da 2:32, "fine gold"). (2) paz, "refined" (So 5:11, "the most fine gold"). (3) chelebh, "fatness," "the best of any kind"; compare Ge 45:18; De 32:14, etc. (Ps 81:16, "the finest of the wheat," the Revised Version, margin Hebrew "fat of wheat"). (4) sariq, "fine combed" (Isa 19:9, "fine flax," the Revised Version (British and American) "combed flax").

In other places it expresses a quality of the substantive: kethem, "fine gold" (Job 31:24; Da 10:5, the Revised Version (British and American) "pure gold"); paz, used as a noun for refined gold (Job 28:17; Ps 19:10; Pr 8:19; Isa 13:12; La 4:2); charuts, "fine gold" (Pr 3:14; compare Ps 68:13, "yellow gold"); coleth, "flour," rendered "fine flour," rolled or crushed small (Le 2:1,4,5,7, etc.); semidalis, "the finest wheaten flour" (Re 18:13); qemach coleth, "fine meal" (Ge 18:6); cadhin, "linen garment" (Septuagint sindon, Pr 31:24 the King James Version; Isa 3:23); shesh, "white," "fine linen" (Ge 41:42; Ex 25:4, etc.); in Pr 31:22 the King James Version has "silk"; sheshi (Eze 16:13, "fine flour"); 'eTun, "what is twisted or spun," "yarn" (Pr 7:16 the King James Version, "fine linen of Egypt" the Revised Version (British and American) "yarn of Egypt"); buts, "fine white cloth," "cotton or linen," "fine linen" (1Ch 4:21; Eze 27:16, etc.; 2Ch 5:12, King James Version "white," the Revised Version (British and American) "fine"); bussos, "byssus," "linen" from buts Septuagint for which, 2Ch 2:14; 3:14), deemed very fine and precious, worn only by the rich (Lu 16:19; Re 18:12); bussinos, "byssine" made of fine linen, Septuagint for buts (1Ch 5:27) (Re 18:16, "clothed in fine linen," the Revised Version (British and American) "arrayed," Re 19:8,14); sindon, "fine linen" (Mr 5:46, "He bought fine linen," the Revised Version (British and American) "a linen cloth"; compare Mr 14:51,52; Mt 27:59; Lu 23:53); it was used for wrapping the body at night, also for wrapping round dead bodies; sindon is Septuagint for cadhin (Jud 14:12,13; Pr 31:24); chalkolibanon (Re 1:15; 2:18, the King James Version "fine brass").

The meaning of this word has been much discussed; chalkos is "brass" in Greek (with many compounds), and libanos is the Septuagint for lebhonah, "frankincense," which word was probably derived from the root labhan, "to burn"; this would give glowing brass, "as if they burned in a furnace"; in Da 10:6 it is nehosheth qalal, the King James Version "polished brass," the Revised Version (British and American) "burnished" (qalal is "to glow"). Plumptre deemed it a hybrid word composed of the Greek chalkos, "brass," and the Hebrew labhan, "white," a technical word, such as might be familiar to the Ephesians; the Revised Version (British and American) has "burnished brass"; Weymouth, "silver-bronze when it is white-hot in a furnace"; the whiteness being expressed by the second half of the Greek word. See Thayer's Lexicon (s.v.).

In Apocrypha we have "fine linen," bussinos (1 Esdras 3:6), "fine bread"; the adjective katharos, separate ( /APC Judith 10:5, the Revised Version, margin "pure bread"); "fine flour" (Ecclesiasticus 35:2; 38:11); semidalis (Bel and the Dragon verse 3; /APC 2Macc 1:8, the Revised Version (British and American) "meal offering").

W. L. Walker

© Levend Water