Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Trimmed their lamps - , adorned them. I have seen some of the eastern lamps or lanthorns, the body of which was a skeleton of wood and threads, covered with a very thin transparent membrane, or very fine gauze, and decorated with flowers painted on it. It is probable that the nuptial lamps were highly decorated in this way; though the act mentioned here may mean no more than preparing the lamps for burning.
The following account of the celebration of a wedding in Persia, taken from the Zend Avesta, vol. ii. p. 558, etc., may cast some light on this place.
\ri720 "The day appointed for the marriage, about five o' clock in the evening, the bridegroom comes to the house of the bride, where the mobed , or priest, pronounces for the first time the nuptial benediction. He then brings her to his own house, gives her some refreshment, and afterwards the assembly of her relatives and friends reconduct her to her father' s house. When she arrives, the mobed repeats the nuptial benediction, which is generally done about Midnight; immediately after, the bride, accompanied with a part of her attending troop, (the rest having returned to their own homes), is reconducted to the house of her husband, where she generally arrives about three o' clock in the morning. Nothing can be more brilliant than these nuptial solemnities in India. Sometimes the assembly consists of not less than two thousand persons, all richly dressed in gold and silver tissue; the friends and relatives of the bride, encompassed with their domestics, are all mounted on horses richly harnessed. The goods, wardrobe, and even the bed of the bride, are carried in triumph. The husband, richly mounted and magnificently dressed, is accompanied by his friends and relatives, the friends of the bride following him in covered carriages. At intervals, during the procession, guns and rockets are fired, and the spectacle is rendered grand beyond description, by a prodigious number of Lighted Torches, and by the Sound of a multitude of musical instruments."
There are certain preparations which most persons believe they must make at the approach of death; but, alas! it is often too late. The lamp is defiled, the light almost out, and the oil expended; and what adorning is a wretched sinner, struggling in the agonies of death, capable of preparing for his guilty soul!
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Matthew 25:7:
Numbers 27:7
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