Reference: Glass, Looking-glass, Mirror
Hastings
This indispensable article of a lady's toilet is first met with in Ex 38:8, where the 'laver of brass' and its base are said to have been made of the 'mirrors (AV 'looking-glasses') of the serving women which served at the door of the tent of meeting' (RV). This passage shows that the mirrors of the Hebrews, like those of the other peoples of antiquity, were made of polished bronze, as is implied in the comparison, Job 37:18, of the sky to a 'molten mirror' (RV and AV 'looking-glass'). A different Hebrew word is rendered 'hand mirror' by RV in the list of toilet articles, Isa 3:23. The fact that this word denotes a writing 'tablet' in Isa 8:1 (RV) perhaps indicates that in the former passage we have an oblong mirror in a wooden frame. The usual shape, however, of the Egyptian (see Wilkinson, Anc. Egyp. ii. 350 f. with illust.), as of the Greek, hand-mirrors was round or slightly oval. As a rule they were furnished with a tang, which fitted into a handle of wood or metal, often delicately carved. Two specimens of circular mirrors of bronze, one 5 inches, the other 4/2, in diameter, have recently been discovered in Philistine (?) graves at Gezer (Quarterly Statement of the same, 1905, 321; 1907, 199 with illusts.).
In the Apocrypha there is a reference, Sir 12:11, to the rust that gathered on these metal mirrors, and in Wis 7:26 the Divine wisdom is described as 'the unspotted mirror of the power of God,' the only occurrence in AV of 'mirror,' which RV substitutes for 'glass' throughout. The NT references, finally, are those by Paul (1Co 13:12; 2Co 3:18) and by James (Jas 1:23). For the 'sea of glass' (RV 'glassy sea') of Re 4:6; 15:2 see art. Sea of Glass.
A. R. S. Kennedy.