If a man or woman has a sore on the head or the beard, then the priest shall examine the sore and indeed if it appears deeper than the skin, and there is in it thin yellow hair, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. Though you lie down among the sheepfolds, you will be like the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold (Psalm 68:13, NKJV). This color was also utilized to diagnose whether a person had leprosy and needed to be quarantined or not.

It is used once to describe how glorious was ancient Israel when it entered the Promised Land. Yellow, in the King James Bible, is recorded four times and is derived from two Hebrew words (Strong's Concordance #H3422, #H6669).

This pigment also holds the distinction of being the only one that mixes badly with black (producing a rather sick looking pigment). Today, American pencils retain this tradition. In the 1890s, pencil makers in the United States began coloring their writing implements yellow due to its association with Chinese royalty (China had the best graphite at the time). Our peripheral vision (the ability to see side or fringe areas when we look straight ahead) is 2 1/2 times higher for it than for red. It is the first wavelength of light processed by the human eye (which belies its use in certain signage and on some emergency rescue vehicles).

What few people know is that not only is this color the most visible light of the spectrum, its high reflectance allows it to act as a secondary light source.

Canari yellow