Bottle

The Arabs keep their water, milk and other liquids in leathern bottles. These are made of goatskins. When the animal is killed they cut off its feet and its head, and draw it in this manner out of the skin without opening its belly. The great leathern bottles are made of the skin of a he-goat, and the small ones, that serve instead of a bottle of water on the road, are made of a kid's skin. The effect of external heat upon a skin bottle is indicated in (Psalms 119:83) "a bottle in the smoke," and of expansion produced by fermentation in (Matthew 9:17) "new wine in old bottles." Vessels of metal, earthen or glassware for liquids were in use among the Greeks, Egyptians, Etruscans and Assyrians, and also no doubt among the Jews, especially in later times. Thus (Jeremiah 19:1) "a potter's earthen bottle." (Bottles were made by the ancient Egyptians of alabaster, gold, ivory and stone. They were of most exquisite workmanship and elegant forms. Tear-bottles were small urns of glass or pottery, made to contain the tears of mourners at funerals, and placed in the sepulchres at Rome and in Palestine. In some ancient tombs they are found in great numbers. (Psalms 56:8) refers to this custom.--ED.)

Bottle

The accompanying engraving shows the form and nature of an ancient goatskin bottle, out of which a water-carrier is offering to sell a draught of water. After the skin has been stripped off from an animal, and properly dressed, the places where the legs had been are closed up; and where the neck was, is the opening left for receiving and discharging the contents of the bottle. These were readily borne upon the shoulder, Genesis 21:14. See also Joshua 9:4,13 Psalm 119:83 Jeremiah 13:12.

By receiving the liquor poured into it, a skin bottle must be greatly swelled and distended; and still more, if the liquor be wine, by its fermentation while advancing to ripeness; so that if no vent be given to it, the liquor may overpower the strength of the bottle, or if it find any defect, it may ooze out by that. Hence the propriety of putting new wine into new bottles, which being in the prime of their strength, may resist the expansion of their contents, and preserve the wine to maturity; while old bottles may, without danger, contain old wine, whose fermentation is already past, Matthew 9:17 Luke 5:38 Job 32:19.

Such bottles, or skins, are still universally employed in travelling in the East, as well as by the public water-carriers, and for domestic uses. They were made, for storage in wine cellars, of the hides of oxen or camels. But the smaller ones of goatskins were more generally used for water as well as wine. The ancients, however, were acquainted with the art of making earthenware, and had a variety of elegant small bottles and vases for toilet purposes, made of the precious metals, of stone, glass, porcelain, and alabaster, Jeremiah 19:1,10,11. See CRUSE, VINE, TEARS.

BOTTLE

bot'-'-l (chemeth, no'-dh, nebhel, baqbuq, 'obh; askos): The most literal rendering of all the words for bottle in English Versions of the Bible is "skin," or "wine-skin," the Revised Version (British and American). The primitive bottle among eastern peoples was really a bag made from skins, tanned or untanned, of kid, goat, cow, camel or buffalo-in most cases drawn off of the animal entire, after the legs and head were cut off, and, when filled, grotesquely retaining the shape of the animal. The skins in common use today, as in ancient times no doubt, for holding water milk, butter and cheese, have the hair left on and are far from cleanly-looking. Those used for wine and oil are tanned by means of oak bark and seasoning in smoke, a process that gives a peculiar astringency of flavor to the wine kept in them, and gave rise to the parable of Jesus about putting new wine into old wine-skins (Matthew 9:17 Mark 2:22 Luke 5:37). The fact that the leather underwent distension once and only once under fermentation, and the further fact that the wine-skins became dried and liable to crack from the smoke and dry heat of the tents and houses, gave point to the parable: "No man putteth new wine into old wine-skins; else the wine will burst the skins, and the wine perisheth, and the skins: but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins." All such "bottles" today are liable to crack and become worthless.

Pliny Fisk used fresh goat-skins to carry water, but he says this gave the water a reddish color and an exceedingly loathsome taste. Harmer tells of carrying liquids in smoked skin-bottles, which when rent "were mended by putting in a new piece, or by gathering up the piece, or by inserting a flat bit of wood." Burckhardt says he saw Arabs keeping water for their horses on journeys in "large bags made of tanned camel-skin." They would sew the skins up well on four sides, but would leave two openings, one to admit the air, one to let out the water. Two such bags made a good load for a camel. Edwin Wilbur Rice says the leather or skin-bottles are of different sizes and kinds, usually made from the skin of the goat, rarely ever from that of the sheep, as it is not considered strong enough. But sometimes they are made from the skin of the camel, or the ox, which is then prepared by tanning. When leather bags are sewed up the joinings are smeared with grease, as the skin-bottles of all sorts are, as they grow older, lest the water, or other liquid, ooze through.

Such bottles, being more portable and less breakable than earthenware, were peculiarly well suited to the use of primitive and nomad peoples, as they are to the roving Bedouin of today. The mention of them, however, in such various accounts and connections as those for instance of the story of Hagar (Genesis 21:19), of the Gibeonites (Joshua 9:4), and of David (1 Samuel 25:18) shows that they were in common use among ancient Orientals, pastoral and peasant alike. Tourists still find that they are admirably suited to travelers in waterless districts, or districts where the water is brackish and bad. One of the characteristic figures even in oriental centers like Damascus today is the waterman who sells from his dripping goat-skin water cooled with the snow of Hermon, flavored with lemon, rose, or licorice, temptingly offered up and down the streets by his clapping his brass cups and crying in the most pleading but pleasing tones, "Drink, drink, thirsty. one" (compare Isaiah 55:1). But, as Dr. Mackie, of Beirut, says, "While the bottle is thus highly prized, and the water thus kept in it is a grateful necessity, the luxury of the East belongs to the spring itself, to the draught from the fountain of living waters." Hence, the comparison Jesus made at Jacob's well (John 4:14), and the one blessed terminus of all, the Shepherd's leading (Revelation 7:17). See HDB, under the word.

Of course in the settled life of the Orient water, milk, wine and other liquids are often kept in earthen jars or other receptacles. For such "bottles" see PITCHER; VESSEL. Glass bottles are not mentioned in the Bible; but those now found in tombs, for keeping perfume in, may have been known in Old Testament times.

Figurative:

(1) For the clouds (Job 38:37).

(2) For intoxication, through which, because of their headstrong continuance in sin, Israel shall be helpless to resist the enemy's attack (Jeremiah 13:12).

(3) For sorrow: "Put thou my tears into thy bottle" (Psalm 56:8). "The Psalmist's sorrows were so many that they would need a great wine-skin to hold them all. There is no allusion to the little lachrymatories of fashionable and fanciful Romans: it is a robuster metaphor by far; such floods of tears had the Psalmist wept that a leathern bottle would scarce hold them" (Treasury of David, III, 39). "God treasures His servants' tears as if they were water or wine." Bernard says, "The tears of penitents are the wine of angels" (Dummelow's Comm., 351).

George B. Eager

TEAR BOTTLE

See next article.

A vessel made of skins for holding wine (Joshua 9:4. 13; 1 Samuel 16:20; Matthew 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37, 38), or milk (Judges 4:19), or water (Genesis 21:14, 15, 19), or strong drink (Habakkuk 2:15).

Earthenware vessels were also similarly used (Jeremiah 19:1-10; 1 Kings 14:3; Isaiah 30:14). In Job 32:19 (Comp. Matthew 9:17; Luke 5:37, 38; Mark 2:22) the reference is to a wine-skin ready to burst through the fermentation of the wine. "Bottles of wine" in the Authorized Version of Hosea 7:5 is properly rendered in the Revised Version by "the heat of wine," i.e., the fever of wine, its intoxicating strength.

The clouds are figuratively called the "bottles of heaven" (Job 38:37). A bottle blackened or shrivelled by smoke is referred to in Psalm 119:83 as an image to which the psalmist likens himself.

1. (n.) A hollow vessel, usually of glass or earthenware (but formerly of leather), with a narrow neck or mouth, for holding liquids.

2. (n.) The contents of a bottle; as much as a bottle contains; as, to drink a bottle of wine.

3. (n.) Fig.: Intoxicating liquor; as, to drown one's reason in the bottle.

4. (v. t.) To put into bottles; to enclose in, or as in, a bottle or bottles; to keep or restrain as in a bottle; as, to bottle wine or porter; to bottle up one's wrath.

5. (n.) A bundle, esp. of hay.

4997. nod -- a skin bottle, skin
... << 4996, 4997. nod or nod or nodah. 4998 >>. a skin bottle, skin. Transliteration:
nod or nod or nodah Phonetic Spelling: (node) Short Definition: bottle. ...
/hebrew/4997.htm - 6k

5035. nebel -- a skin bottle, skin, jar, pitcher
... a skin bottle, skin, jar, pitcher. Transliteration: nebel Phonetic Spelling:
(neh'-bel) Short Definition: bottle. bottle, pitcher, psaltery, vessel, viol ...
/hebrew/5035.htm - 5k

178. ob -- a bottle (made from animal skin), a necromancer
... ob. 179 >>. a bottle (made from animal skin), a necromancer. Transliteration: ob
Phonetic Spelling: (obe) Short Definition: mediums. ... bottle, familiar spirit. ...
/hebrew/178.htm - 6k

5035a. nebel -- a skin bottle, skin, jar, pitcher
... << 5035, 5035a. nebel. 5035b >>. a skin bottle, skin, jar, pitcher. Transliteration:
nebel Short Definition: jug. Word Origin of uncertain ...
/hebrew/5035a.htm - 5k

2573. chemeth -- a water skin
... bottle. From the same as chowmah; a skin bottle (as tied up) -- bottle. see HEBREW
chowmah. << 2572, 2573. chemeth. 2574 >>. Strong's Numbers.
/hebrew/2573.htm - 6k

1228. baqbuq -- a flask
... Word Origin from baqaq Definition a flask NASB Word Usage jar (3). bottle, cruse.
From baqaq; a bottle (from the gurgling in emptying) -- bottle, cruse. ...
/hebrew/1228.htm - 6k