She painted her face— Rendered in the margin, put her eyes in painting: the word פוךֶ puk, rendered painting, signifies a mineral substance, stybium or stimmi, otherwise called plumbago, or black-lead, a kind of ochre of very fine and loose parts. The word occurs again, Jeremiah 4:30 and both there as well as here, it is mentioned as somewhat with which women coloured their eyes. At this day the women in many parts of the east, tinge their eyes with black to heighten their beauty. The ingenious writer of the "Agreement of the customs between the East Indians and Jews," well illustrates this matter. "Ezekiel," says he, "describing the idolatry of Jerusalem, under the figure of a lewd woman, accuses her of rubbing her eye-lids with black-lead when her lovers came to wait upon her." Ezekiel 23:40. This is what we find also that Jezebel did. She painted her eye lids or her eyes, with black-lead, and put ornaments upon her head. If we may judge of this practice by our fashions, it was not very fit to render women more enticing, yet the custom is still in use among the Indian women that are white, who, to heighten the lustre of their complexion, and render their eyes more languishing, paint them round with black-lead, which serves almost the same purpose as the patches used by some European ladies. See Tavernier's Travels into Persia, Russel's Natural History of Aleppo, and Shaw's Travels. The last cited author observes, that the practice above-mentioned was used as well by the Greeks and Romans as by the eastern nations; and to this Juvenal plainly refers, Sat. 2:
Ille supercilium madida fuligine tinctum, Obliqua producit acu, pingitque trementes Attollens oculos.
With jet-black pencils on his eye-brows dyes, And, gently touching, paints his trembling eyes.
See Parkhurst on the word פךֶ pak. Dr. Shaw further observes, that the general method of building, both in Barbary and the Levant, seems to have continued the same from the earliest ages down to this time, without the least alteration or improvement. Large doors, spacious chambers, marble pavements, cloistered courts, with fountains sometimes playing in the midst, are certainly conveniences very well adapted to the circumstances of these hotter climates. The jealousy likewise of these people is less apt to be alarmed, whilst, if we except a small latticed window or balcony which sometimes looks into the street, all the other windows open into their respective courts or quadrangles. It is during the celebration only of some public festival that these houses and their latticed windows or balconies are left open; for, this being a time of great liberty, revelling, and extravagance, each family is ambitious of adorning both the inside and outside of their houses with their richest furniture; while crowds of both sexes, dressed out in their best apparel, and laying aside all modesty and restraint, go in and out where they please. The account that we here have of Jezebel's dressing herself and looking out at a window for Jehu's public entrance into Jezreel, gives us a lively idea of an eastern lady at one of these public solemnities. See Trav. p. 227. 229.