Fuller

The trade of the fullers, so far as it is mentioned in Scripture, appears to have consisted chiefly in cleansing garments and whitening them. The process of fulling or cleansing clothes consisted in treading or stamping on the garments with the feet or with bats in tubs of water, in which some alkaline substance answering the purpose of soap had been dissolved. The substances used for this purpose which are mentioned in Scripture are natron, (Proverbs 25:20; Jeremiah 2:22) and soap. (Malachi 3:2) Other substances also are mentioned as being employed in cleansing, which, together with alkali, seem to identify the Jewish with the Roman process, as urine and chalk. The process of whitening garments was performed by rubbing into them calk or earth of some kind. Creta cimolia (cimolite) was probably the earth most frequently used. The trade of the fullers, as causing offensive smells, and also as requiring space for drying clothes, appears to have been carried on at Jerusalem outside the city.

The word “full” is from the Anglo-Saxon fullian, meaning “to whiten.” To full is to press or scour cloth in a mill. This art is one of great antiquity. Mention is made of “fuller’s soap” (Mal. 3:2), and of “the fuller’s field” (2 Kings 18:17). At his transfiguration our Lord’s rainment is said to have been white “so as no fuller on earth could white them” (Mark 9:3). En-rogel (q.v.), meaning literally “foot-fountain,” has been interpreted as the “fuller’s fountain,” because there the fullers trod the cloth with their feet.

A spot near Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:17; Isa. 36:2; 7:3), on the side of the highway west of the city, not far distant from the “upper pool” at the head of the valley of Hinnom. Here the fullers pursued their occupation.

(Heb. borith mekabbeshim, i.e., “alkali of those treading cloth”). Mention is made (Prov. 25:20; Jer. 2:22) of nitre and also (Mal. 3:2) of soap (Heb. borith) used by the fuller in his operations. Nitre is found in Syria, and vegetable alkali was obtained from the ashes of certain plants. (See SOAP.)