Of Hearth and Home: Common Houses in Ancient Israel

Of Hearth and Home:

Common Houses in Ancient Israel

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                The design of houses in the Middle East has remained fairly uniform through the centuries, so that even today one can find families living in houses that are virtually identical (in architecture, at least) to the homes of three millennia ago.

                The Israelites started out living in tents, as did many of the peoples of the Levant—and even after they had built more substantial homes, it was not uncommon for families to live in tents during the summer harvest season. Cave homes were also relatively common, like the one Lot lived in (Genesis 19:30) or the more elaborate caves of the Edomites at Petra (Obadiah 3).

                The standard house within the borders of a town, though, was blockish in design, comprised of a single rectangular room for the very poor, or a larger square with an open courtyard in the center for the wealthier. The roof was flat and typically reached by means of an external staircase—either outside the home or within the courtyard.

                Inside was usually a single room, around 10 feet square. The thick brick walls had niches carved in them for storing food and utensils, and a single, narrow window to let in light and let out smoke; it might be covered with a wooden lattice (Proverbs 7:6) in summer and a skin or wool curtain in winter. The door was nothing more than a curtain in poorer homes; wealthier citizens could afford a wooden door with a bar.

                The floor was packed earth, often in two levels: a lower section into which one entered when coming through the door, and a raised portion at the back where the family slept and ate. Historians speculate that one of the reasons for this raised section was to keep livestock from walking on the sleeping family when the animals were brought inside at night during winter. In any case, to our modern noses the houses would have been redolent with the smell of animals and smoke.

                Furniture was a luxury. Common people had a straw mat for a bed, and their “table” was simply a rug laid on the floor during meal times. The wealthier had couches, divans, tables, and chairs—sometimes exquisitely carved.

                Homes were constructed of bricks of sun-dried mud or fired clay until the time of King David. Then, with the availability of iron tools, houses of cut stone became more common. Unless the home was of finished stone, it was sealed with mortar or whitewash, designed to protect it from the weather. The idea was only moderately successful—these homes required constant maintenance. The walls provided a warm, protected environment for vermin—no doubt the rustling of rodents, birds, and snakes were common noises in the Israelite home.

                Homes in Galilee were typically built using black basalt. Those constructed along the Mediterranean coast were made of yellow sandstone, and the rest of the country used white limestone.

                The roof of the Middle Eastern home served many purposes and was, in some ways, the most important area of the house. It was constructed by laying brushwood across sycamore (cedar or cypress for the wealthy) beams, then binding and covering it with layers of mud. These roofs were, as you can imagine, particularly susceptible to rain. A heavy roller was kept handy to pack the mud down again after precipitation had softened it.

                In spite of this precaution, roofs leaked. Since the mud that made them was full of seeds and roots, plants began to sprout after each rain; roofs must have turned green during the wet season.

                The roof provided a cool, quiet place for the family to gather, for women to do their work, and for crops to be dried for storage. The Torah required that family heads install a parapet around the roof—no doubt because so much time was spent atop it that falls could have been common.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

The Torah as Legislation

by Timothy S. Wilkinson
www.timothywilkinson.net

The Torah was essentially a legislative document outlining the governmental systems that Israelites were to live by; in fact, unlike most nations, the citizens subjected themselves to the laws voluntarily. Its precepts were not only very advanced for their time, but they formed the basis for all of western law since—including the Constitution of the United States.

The Ten Commandments (the “Ten Words” in the original Hebrew) were fairly standard laws shared by most cultures—with one key exception. The tenth commandment forbade covetousness. Not only was this difficult to enforce, but its violation could be known only by God and the violator.

Jehovah was the Supreme Sovereign, and human kings (who first appeared hundreds of years after the Law was instituted) were said to ‘sit on Jehovah’s throne,’ representing him. Below the king, the nation was organized into tribal elders, princes or chieftains and, under them, chiefs of thousands, hundreds and fifties. These were selected by the elders on the basis of their fear of God, their trustworthiness, and their incorruptibility. Respect for all of these government officials was mandatory, and disrespect was punishable, in extreme cases, by death.

All members of the nation were required to love Jehovah and worship Him alone, and to do so with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. ‘Taking up God’s name in a worthless way’ was a serious offense. Engaging in the worship rituals of other nations was also a crime: making or worshipping idols, cutting or tattooing the body, spiritism, or sorcery.The tribe of Levi was responsible to take the lead in worship. Since this took precedence over their secular work, they were supported through a tithe paid by the other twelve tribes. The Levites, in turn, gave a tenth of what they received to the Priests, made up of one family or clan in the tribe.

Priests served as teachers, lawyers and judges. Elders made up the lower courts; difficult cases were submitted to under-priests or to the Supreme Court made up of the High Priest and his sons. Two witnesses to a given crime were required in order to file charges. If the accused was found guilty, these witnesses were the first participants in executing punishments (which helped prevent false testimony).

Civil infractions were typically punished by fine. Criminal infractions could result in public beating (no more than 40 strokes), a corresponding retaliatory punishment (an “eye for an eye”), payment of damages, or death by stoning.

While Hebrew people were born into their position as members of the “congregation of Israel,” people of other nations could freely join by being circumcised and abiding by the terms of the Law. Such proselytes were limited, though, in their access to certain holy locations and participation in certain rituals.

The seventh day of the week was a Sabbath, reserved for worship; no “work” (the word carries the idea of “secular activities” in Hebrew) was to be done on that day. Any individual with so little appreciation for spiritual things that he rejected the opportunity to relax and worship with family and friends and (alone, while the rest of his people were engaged in worship), sacrificed an opportunity to serve God for the sake of making money was considered an idolater: he had placed profit ahead of his obligations to God. As an idolater, he was executed. If this punishment seems harsh, it is good to keep in mind that any Israelite who ignored the Sabbath did so deliberately against tremendous family, social, cultural, and religious pressure; he was, in effect, rejecting the basic moral, political, legal, and religious precepts of the nation to which he belonged.

All males were required to gather three times a year at the Tabernacle or Temple for religious holidays. It appears from ancient records that most men brought their families with them. The celebrations were the Passover (commemorating the nation’s freedom from Egypt), the Festival of Weeks (a harvest celebration), and the Festival of Booths (commemorating God’s protection and aid during the nation’s forty year sojourn in the wilderness). In time, other holidays were added.

Worshippers presented animal, drink, grain, and other offerings at the Tabernacle or Temple on a variety of occasions. Some of these were consumed in the fires of the altar, some cooked and then eaten by the officiate and the supplicant, and some waved in the air in symbol of their dedication to God.

Marriage was a sacred institution. Husbands had legal ownership of their wives. Polygamy was tolerated but regulated. If a man died without having children, his brother was expected to marry the widow and ‘raise up children for’ the dead man. Israelites could not marry foreign women, unless the women were captured during military activities. Husbands could divorce their wives for any sexual sin, unless he had seduced her before they were married. Adulterers were executed by stoning. Indecent assault was punished by amputation of the limb involved.

Israelites could loan money to their countrymen, but could not charge interest or take the borrower’s outer garment or their millstone overnight as collateral. The loaner could not enter the borrower’s home to collect the debt (or collateral); he had to wait for the borrower to bring it out to him. Every seven years all debts were forgiven and any land that had been sold was returned to its original owner.

Dietary laws listed “clean” and “unclean” foods. Eating blood or fat was strictly forbidden.

Ceremonial uncleanness required an individual to quarantine his or herself for a period of time, wash and/or sterilize him or herself and any items that might have been affected, and be inspected by a priest before being pronounced clean. In addition to symptoms of various diseases (like plague or leprosy), an individual could be pronounced “unclean” after childbirth, menstruation, sexual intercourse, seminal emissions, touching a corpse or grave, or going into battle.

Unlike any other Bronze Age cultures of the Middle East, Israelite Law established an effective welfare system to address the needs of the poor and disadvantaged. Landowners left some crops in their fields during harvest, which the poor (including widows and orphans) could collect—requiring them to work for their sustenance and granting them the dignity of doing so. Alien residents were granted the same legal protections as all other citizens.

Slavery was a major part of the culture, but in practice it had more in common with modern employment than the slavery of the 19th century. It was almost always a way for an individual to work off an otherwise unpayable debt. Masters could flog their slaves, but if the slave was maimed, he was freed; if he was killed, the master could be executed. All slaves were freed on the Jubilee, which came every seven years. When they were granted their freedom (whether by Jubilee, fulfillment of their contract, or any other reason), the Law required the master to present them with severance—the amount to be determined by the master’s financial standing.

There were no other cultures that provided protection for animals in the way the Torah did. When bulls were turning a mill wheel, they could not be muzzled, but were allowed to eat of the fallen grains. Failing to help an animal in distress—no matter whom the animal belonged to—was a criminal act, as was overworking or mistreating beasts of burden. A person was not allowed to wipe out a family of birds by collecting both the mother and her eggs. Apparently to foster a sense of the value of life, an animal and its young could not be slaughtered on the same day, and a kid could not be cooked using its mother’s milk.

While there are many more statutes in the Law (a little more than 600 of them), it was miniscule in comparison with modern legal systems—in the early 1990’s, there were roughly 125,000 pages of laws in the federal law books of the United States. But for almost 1600 years the Torah served the needs of the people of Israel.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

Magic in the Torah: Supernatural Manifestations in Israelite Worship

by Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                As common and important as sacred rituals and divine interactions are in the Biblical record, everyday ancient Hebrew worship lacked the supernatural element so common in other religious practices of the times. Canaanite wives placed clay idols of women with swollen bellies around their homes in the hope of getting pregnant. Mothers hung amulets around their children’s necks to ward off evil spirits. Diviners consulted the stars, the internal organs of slaughtered animals, the swirling of oil poured on water, the smoke of incense, and cast dice to foretell the future. Sacred texts uncovered in the ruins of the Hittite city of Ugarit describe the Dagil Itstsuri as priests who gained divine direction by observing the flight patterns of birds. The Gdazerin would make voodoo-doll-like wax images of calves and then cut them in half to cause the death of an oath-breaker. Newborns were buried under the cornerstones of buildings to guarantee the safety of the structure.

                Israelite worship did make use of potent symbolisms at times: libations poured out over an altar; sheaves of grain waved back and forth in the temple in offering. A red heifer that had never been used for work was burned with hyssop and scarlet cord and the collected ashes were mixed with spring water to make “holy water.” This was sprinkled over people, garments, or domiciles that had become ceremonially unclean. But the “cleansing” was understood to be symbolic, not miraculous.

                There were, though, a handful of common supernatural elements to the Torah, or the Law given to Moses by which the Israelites were to live.

The Urim and Thummim

                In Exodus chapter 8 Moses adorns his brother, Aaron, in the ceremonial clothing of the High Priest. In verse 8, he puts a breastpiece on him—a sheet of worked gold in which were set twelve gemstones representing the twelve tribes of Israel. In the breastpiece he places “the Urim and the Thummim.” The actual translation of the Hebrew here (ha’urim’ we’eth-hattummim’) is unclear. The Greek Septuagint calls them “the explanation (manifestation) and the truth”; the Syriac Peshitta opts for “the light and the perfection”; and the Latin Vulgate “the doctrine and the truth.”

                Literal translation aside, scholars generally agree that the Urim and Thummim were some sort of sacred lots kept in a pouch in the High Priest’s breastpiece “over his heart” (Exodus 28:30). A perusal of 1 Samuel chapters 14 and 23 indicate that they seemed to produce “yes” or “no” answers, and chapters 14 and 28 add the possibility that they could also give “no answer.” Jewish tradition holds that they were two flat stones, each black on one side and white on the other. The High Priest would inquire of Jehovah with a “yes” or “no” question and toss the stones. If both stones landed with the white side up, the answer was “yes”; black sides up meant “no.” If one white and one black side were revealed, it indicated a divine unwillingness to answer for some reason.

                This arrangement made the monarchy dependent on the priesthood for divine direction, creating a sort of “checks and balances” system to prevent the king from gaining too much power.

                According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 48b), the Urim and Thummim were no longer used after the destruction of the temple in 607 B.C.E.

The Shechinah

                The original house of worship for Israel was the Tabernacle, a portable temple constructed in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt. This rectangular prism was divided into two sections: the “Holy” and the “Holy of Holies.” The Holy of Holies was a perfect cube in which was kept the Ark of the Covenant. As most people now know from Hollywood’s depictions, this ark had a lid adorned with two cherubs facing one another. According to Exodus 25:21 and 22, the Divine Presence resided (in a symbolic sense) between the wings of the two cherubs in a “cloud” (Leviticus 16:2). The cloud was luminous—it was the only source of light within this room, wherein the High Priest went once a year during the Day of Atonement ceremony to sprinkle blood upon the Ark and the floor. Only the High Priest ever saw it, but its existence is attested to by a number of the men who bore this title.

                In the Targums (Aramaic translations of the Bible from the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries), this miraculous light is called the Shechinah. Jewish tradition also records that anyone who saw this light unworthily—that is, anyone but the High Priest, and even him on any day but the Day of Atonement—would immediately be struck dead. For this reason in later years the priests would tie a cord to the ankle of the High Priest when he entered the Holy of Holies on that day. If he had somehow dishonored his office and was struck dead, they wanted to have a way to pull the body out without entering the sacred chamber themselves.

The Falling Away of the Thigh

                The most unusual of these supernatural manifestations, though, is found at Numbers chapter 5 verses 12 through 31. Here the Torah describes what should be done if a man suspected his wife of having been unfaithful (the colorful Hebrew says “the spirit of jealousy has passed upon him, and he has become suspicious of his wife’s faithfulness”).

                The husband brings his wife to the Tabernacle with an offering of barley flour for “bringing error to remembrance.” The wife is brought “before Jehovah”—probably a reference to her standing alone (without her husband) near the entrance of the Tabernacle. The priest gathered some dust from the floor of the Tabernacle and sprinkled it into “holy water” (probably just clean water in this case, taken from the basin in which the priests ritually washed) in an earthenware vessel. The mixture thus produced was called “the bitter water that brings a curse.” The priest then ‘loosened the hair of the woman’s head,’ removing the tsa’iph or head covering all Israelite women wore in public. This may very well have been the psychological equivalent to having her stand naked in front of him—not, of course, in a sexual sense, but in that the woman would have felt very exposed. The grain offering her husband had brought was put into her hands.

                The priest then intoned:

“If no man has lain down with you and if while under your husband you have not turned aside in any uncleanness, be free of the effect of this bitter water that brings a curse. But you, in case you have turned aside while under your husband and in case you have defiled yourself and some man has put in you his seminal emission, besides your husband…May Jehovah set you for a cursing and an oath in the midst of your people by Jehovah’s letting your thigh fall away, and your belly swell. And this water that brings a curse must enter into your intestines to cause your belly to swell and the thigh to fall away.” To this the woman must say: “Amen! Amen!” (Numbers 5:19-22)

                After the woman so swore, the priest wrote a copy of the above onto a small scroll and then washed that scroll in “the bitter water that brings a curse.” He tossed some of the grain offering onto the altar and made the woman drink the water.

                According to Numbers 5 the result to a guilty woman was disastrous: “The water that brings a curse must then enter into her as something bitter, and her belly must swell, and her thigh must fall away, and the woman must become a cursing in among her people.”

                The thigh was commonly used by Jewish scribes as a stand-in word for the genitals (they could not bring themselves to write the Hebrew words for reproductive organs in the holy book). The “falling away” referred to here was an idiomatic reference to becoming sterile—although it appears that the swelling of the belly was literal and became an outward sign of the woman’s guilt.

                In the Torah the punishment for adultery was death. As with all criminal penalties, the sentence could not be executed unless there were two or three witnesses to the crime. Evidently since the crime of adultery was highly unlikely to have the prerequisite two witnesses, this alternative method was provided for establishing guilt. Even when the woman failed the ritual she was not put to death. The Mishnah seems to indicate that this was because the identity of the guilty man was still unknown, and it would be an injustice for the woman to be executed and not the man.

(All Scripture quotations taken from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1984).

Israelite Engineering

Israelite Engineering

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

            In 1 Kings chapter 7, verses 23 through 26 Jeremiah records a truly incredible feat of ancient engineering: “And he [King Hiram of Tyre] proceeded to make the molten sea [a sacred water reservoir] ten cubits (175 inches) from its one brim to its other brim, circular all around; and its height was five cubits (87 ½ inches), and it took a line of thirty cubits (525 inches) to circle all around it. And there were gourd-shaped ornaments down below its brim all around, encircling it, ten in a cubit, enclosing the sea all around, with two rows of the groud-shaped ornaments cast in its casting. It was standing upon twelve bulls, three facing north, and three facing west, and three facing south, and three facing east; and the sea was above them, and all their hind parts were toward the center. And its thickness was a handbreadth (3 inches); and its brim was like the workmanship of the brim of  a cup, a lily blossom. Two thousand bath measures (11,600 gallons) were what it could contain.” (New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures)

            Had the “sea” been filled to its brim, it actually could have held 17,400 gallons. Empty, it would have weighed well over 30 tons. “There can be little doubt that it was one of the greatest engineering works ever undertaken in the Hebrew nation,” says former technical officer at the National Research Council of Canada, Albert Zuidhof, in Biblical Archeologist.

            According to verses 45 and 46 of the same chapter of 1 Kings, Hiram cast the sea “in the clay mold.” Archaeologists believe this to be a variation of the lost wax method. A wax model of the piece was crafted upside-down over a completed core mold. The artisans then built up a mold (probably of clay) over the wax model, completely encapsulating it. When the mold was dry, the whole mass was heated in some way so that the wax would melt and drain out of tubes set in the mold for this purpose. The tubes were blocked up, and liquid bronze was poured into the mold from the top.

            Many researchers have doubted whether or not the ancient Israelites had the technological and engineering skill to make such a casting. Heating, transporting, and pouring 30 tons of molten bronze is no small feat, and probably required some sort of a custom furnace made just for the job. The casting was done all at once, and the pressures generated inside the mold would have been tremendous.

            There is evidence, though, that Iron Age Israelites had developed remarkable engineering abilities. Water systems excavated at Hazor, Gibeon, Megiddo, and Jerusalem all attest to their skill.

            The Siloam tunnel was constructed to bring water from the Gihon spring in the Kidron Valley (outside the wall) into the city of Jerusalem. The tunnel slices through 130 feet of solid rock.

            The so-called “Hezekiah’s tunnel” is even more impressive. By Hezekiah’s day the Gihon spring had become even more unprotected from a besieging army. The king had the spring enclosed in rock to block access (or even visibility) from outside the wall. Then he commissioned the construction of a new tunnel to bring the water into the city. The tunnel remains to this day: 1,749 feet cut straight through the bedrock. Near its center one of the workers inscribed the following:

[…when] (the tunnel) was driven through. And this was the way in which it was cut through: While […] (were) still […] axe(s), each man toward his fellow, and while there were still three cubits to be cut through, [there was heard] the voice of a man calling to his fellow for there was an overlap in the rock on the right [and on the left]. And when the tunnel was driven through, the quarrymen hewed (the rock), each man toward his fellow, axe against axe; and the water flowed from the spring toward the reservoir for 1,200 cubits, and the height of the rock above the head(s) of the quarrymen was 100 cubits. (J. B. Pritchard (ed)., Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 321).

           

The project involved the removal of 850 cubic yards of rock. Two teams, digging from opposite sides, met in the middle, only a little less than a foot out of alignment with one another. This would be an impressive feat with modern equipment, let alone Iron Age tools! Some researchers are convinced the builders used tapping sounds from above to guide the diggers, but the truth remains a mystery. What we do know for a fact is that ancient Israelite engineers had skills beyond what we might expect of the time period. We do well not to underestimate their abilities.

Childbirth In Ancient Israel

The first command God gave to humans in the Scriptures was "Be fruitful and multiply." Families in Bible times took this command very seriously. One rabbi of the first century B.C.E. wrote, "If anyone does not [have children], it is as though he were to shed blood or to diminish God's image."

There was no such thing as deliberate childlessness among Jewish families. Children were the purpose of marriage; children assured that the family name would continue and that hereditary property would remain in the family. Modern Palestinian Arabs believe that a couple without children is unnatural. When a couple's first son is born, the father's name is changed to include that of the firstborn: if the child's name is Dathan, the father's name would be changed to Abudathan (Father of Dathan). A man without children is chidingly called "Father of Nothing," and one without sons is called "Abu el Banat" (Father of Daughters), which is both an insult and an expression of sympathy.

Childlessness or barrenness was a serious problem. A barren woman was considered a reproach by her neighbors (Luke 1:25); Rachel's inability to conceive made her suicidal (Gen 30:1). Partly this was because Israelites believed the barrenness was a sign of divine disapproval--a curse resulting from some sin on the part of the woman or her family. In Moses' benediction to the people before his death, he had promised the faithful and obedient: "Blessed shall you be above all people, and there will not be found among you a male or female who is barren."

Out of this belief came the common procedures for encouraging conception. The couple examined their entire lives for any unconfessed sins and repented of them, even offering sacrifices in atonement for sins they did not know they had committed (Leviticus 4:2). Their prayers centered on this theme (note the examples of Isaaac in Genesis 25 and Hannah in 1 Samuel 1).

If sin was ruled out as the cause of the malady, friends and relatives would suggest remedies. Rachel asked Leah for mandrakes, plants believed to produce fertility. Apples and fish were also used for this purpose.

Despite the divine edict against idolatry, modern excavations in Israel have uncovered countless clay fertility figurines in the rough shape of pregnant women. Women believed that by keeping the image close and handling them they could invoke "sympathetic magic" and become pregnant themselves. Jeremiah records women kneading cakes and offerings libations and incense to Ashtoreth (Astarte), the Canaanite goddess of sex, maternity, and fertility.

A women who was persistently barren might find herself replaced in her husband's affections by a second wife or a concubine. This was not always considered bad by the wife--Sarah asked Abraham to impregnate her servant, Hagar (Genesis 16), and Rachel asked Joseph to do the same to Bilhah (Genesis 30).

When the wife did become pregnant, it was a time for great rejoicing and celebration. Miscarriages were no doubt common, though, as were complications (Genesis 35, 38; 1 Samuel 4:20). The child came into the world on a dirt floor, was washed with unpurified water and swaddled in cloths that could not be freed of fleas and insects. Researchers believe that infant mortality in ancient Egypt was as high as 90 percent, and archaeology supports the idea that the numbers were not much better in Palestine. The Torah specified that the infant was to be redeemed after he or she had lived for 30 days; if the child survived that long, it was considered likely that he or she would live longer.

Mothers were assisted by midwives, and the birth took place with the mother in a seated or kneeling position on a birthing stool (Exodus 1:16). When the baby came out the umbilical cord was cut and the child was rubbed with salt, water, and oil. Swaddling clothes were used to wrap the child and were changed every week or so until the child reached the age of 40 days. Either on the day of its birth or on the eighth day afterward (when the male children were circumcised) the child was named.

Male children were preferred. In the cultures of some of Israel's neighbor nations parents might actually leave a newborn girl in the wild to die, or sell her into slavery. Israelite couples welcomed both male and female babies, but only the male could carry on the family name and keep the family's hereditary properties in the genealogical line. (Exceptions were made to this--see the case of the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers Chapter 27). Thus the famous and no-doubt oft-repeated proclamation: "There has been a child born to us; There has been a son given to us."(Isaiah 9:6)