"Costly Apparel" in the Geneva Bible

Readers of the Book of Mormon recognize the “wearing of costly apparel”—and, surely, “very costly apparel”—as the sign, par excellence, of Nephite pride. “Very costly apparel” signals arrogance, the priestly cloth of Nehor. The Book of Mormon never sticks to a single note, so we also see “fine clothing,” “very fine clothing,” “fine apparel,” “precious clothing,” and “the costliness of your apparel.” Reference is made to fine silks and fine-twined linen, something approximating the wonderful cumbi cloth of the alpaca.

“Costly apparel” certainly is biblical idiom, as are so many other Book of Mormon phrases. What’s surprising, very surprising, is the appearance of the phrase in the Geneva rather than in the King James Bible read by the young Joseph Smith. For that reason, readers of the Book of Mormon are the only ones for whom the phrase is current today—and current it is! We all know about “costly apparel.”

Was the phrase once common parlance already known to the translator? or a coining? Because it also occurs in the marginal notes of the Geneva Bible, it is certainly the former, although its use in Shakespeare or Wesley came by way of the Geneva Bible. (The pertinent marginal notes can be found via a Google search.) In other words, the Geneva Bible popularized and magnified the phrase in the English-speaking world, the theological and the literary, that is until it sank out of sight for pretty much all but Book of Mormon readers. Evidence for its usage appears in the Google Books Ngram Viewer and includes Wesley and Shakespeare. The high point of usage comes in 1827.

The source text for “costly apparel”, then, is 1 Timothy 2:9 (Geneva). Note also the use of “comely apparel” and of “pearls," which compares well to costly apparel and pearls in 4th Nephi.

“Likewise also the women, that they array themselves in comely apparel, with shamefastness and modesty, not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly apparel.”

The Timothy of Tyndale, Coverdale, and James yields “costly array.” Wycliffe gives us the following: Also wymmen in couenable abite, with schamefastnesse and sobrenesse araiynge [cf. array] hem silf, not in writhun heeris, ethir in gold, ethir peerlis, ethir preciouse cloth”. “Preciouse cloth”—that’s fascinating to read: The angel that appears to Nephi speaks of "precious clothing." Cloth to array to apparel. . .

And the Greek? Poluteles signifies “ ‘commanding a high price,’ [that is to say] very costly; metaph. very precious" (Frederick William Danker, The Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament). The thing to note is “very” and “high”: highly costly, the extreme in luxury. Today the “extreme” of which the Book of Mormon warns can be the prohibitively costly—the designer masks of the pandemic—or the excessively sloppy that meets us in every airport, at every turn. 

As Hugh Nibley used to tell us, costly apparel can be anything that calls (undue) attention to the wearer. As an example of how to dress as Alma might dress, he’d suggest that we consider Spencer W. Kimball, the neatly dressed man who never called attention to himself. For Nibley, it was not the simply utilitarian, but the simple and the appropriate. “Simple dignity” best describes President Kimball’s mode (see examples: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/i-sustain-him-as-a-prophet-i-love-him-as-an-affectionate-father/).

As for Nibley’s famous mode of apparel, he spoke of it wryly but never recommended it. Gordon B. Hinckley told family about the time—in the Fifties or Sixties—when Brother Nibley showed up in the Church Administration Building only to be turned away by his secretary as a bum. Gordon Hinckley recognized him just in time. The story was told with great humor--and great affection. And, of course, Brother Nibley also complained (yes, complained bitterly) to a BYU class about security descending on him as he walked, book in hand, in the parking lot behind BYU’s administration building. Reading, he pointed out, was cause for arrest at BYU.

We return now to our Bible readings:

Geneva Isaiah 3:22 also yields “costly apparel":

“the costly apparel and the veils.”

And the Hebrew original for “costly apparel”? The latest suggestion is that the Hebrew refers to an accessory item rather than a garment, likely a polished mirror (https://sahd-online.com/words/gillayon/#:~:text=Gen.%20R.%20XIX.6%20seems%20to,LXX.%20In%20Modern%20Hebrew%20%2C).

Marginal notes in the Geneva Bible also use the phrase “costly apparel":

“I delighted to do justice, as others did to wear costly apparel.”

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2029%3A14&version=GNV

 

The marginal note comments on "a robe, and a crown" in Job 29:14:

 

I put on justice, and it covered me: my judgment was as a robe, and a crown.

 

Did Shakespeare pick up the phrase from the air of parlance or from the Bible? Shakespeare read the Geneva Bible:

 

First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold,
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needle-work;
Pewter and brass, and all things that belongs
To house or housekeeping.

Taming, II i.