≡6 HEBREW LIFE AND CUSTOM
domestic needs such as the drying of flax,1 and in the
later days of the monarchy we even read of altars upon
them.2
The large houses, which would frequently be constructed
of hewn stone,3 might be built round one or more court-
yards,4 and contained a number of apartments.3 The
very wealthy had different residences for summer and
winter.6 Windows were closed in with lattice,7 through
which, since there was no chimney, the smoke of the fire
escaped.8 A projecting window in a house built on the
city wall is probably indicated as that through which the
spies were let down.9 In the poorer houses the fire was
doubtless on the floor. A brazier with a fire is, however,
mentioned in the royal palace,10 and one is perhaps implied
in Amnon’s bedroom.1 ɪ
The slightly superior houses seem to have been f but and
ben,,12 in which case the inner room would presumably be
the bedroom. Bedchambers are mentioned at various
periods.13 The ‘ chamber of beds ’, in which Joash as a
little child was hidden from Athaliah,1* is best understood
as the dormitory in which the female servants and atten-
dants slept, into which a man would not penetrate.
The bedrooms of the larger houses would seem to have
been as a rule on the upper floor; at least this is the
natural inference from such expressions as ‘ to go up upon
a bed,.15
In addition to sitting-rooms and bedrooms, royal palaces,
and doubtless other mansions, had store-rooms for
’ Joshua ii. 6. * Jer. xix. ɪɜ ; cf. Zeph. i. 5.
3 x Kings vii. 9 ; Arnos v. 11 ; Isa. ix. 9.
4 2 Sam. xvii. 18 ; Neh. viii. x6.
5 i Kings vii. 8-12.
6 Amos iii. 15 ; Jer. xxxvi. 22. 7 Cant. ii. 9.
8 Hosea xiii. 3. , Joshua ii. 15.
” Jer. xxxvi. 22, 23. u 2 Sam. xiiι. 8.
ra i Kings xx. 30, xxii. 25 ; 2 Kings ix. 2.
4 Judges xv. i ; 2 Sam. iv. 7 J 2 Kings vi. ɪ 2.
m 2 Kings xi. 2. 4 2 Kings i. 4 ; Ps. cxxxii. 3.
FIRE AND WATER SUPPLY 27
valuables,1 and even lumber-rooms.2 We may be sure that
Solomon’s daily menu required extensive kitchen premises
and larders, and we have mention of wine-cellars3 and
oil-stores/
The larger houses sometimes had a porch or vestibule.
It was in such a vestibules that, according to the more
correct reading of the LXX, Ishbosheth5S portress was
sifting wheat, to be ground in a hand-mill, when overcome
by the noon-day heat she dozed and fell fast asleep, so
that Rechab and Baanah slipped past her and murdered
Ishbosheth in his bedroom.6
The outer door-posts seem to have had inscriptions
probably originally of a magical character to protect the
house.7 We read of locks and keys in connexion with the
palace of Eglon, King of Moab, and of the royal palace at
Jerusalem.8 In the latter case the key of the palace is part
of the insignia of office with which the chief official of the
palace is invested, in much the same way as the incumbent
of a present-day parish is, upon his induction, given the
key of the church door.9
For their water supply, houses which could not depend
on a well or a perennial spring in the neighbourhood
stored water in rock-hewn cisterns. Hence to drink the
water of one’s own cistern was a proverbial expression
meaning to be content with what home afforded.10 The
unsatisfactory character of such cisterns as compared with
a spring is the point of the emphatic words WhichJeremiah
puts into the mouth of Jehovah : ɪɪ ‘ Me they have for-
saken, a spring of fresh water, hewing out for themselves
cisterns—broken cisterns at that—which cannot hold
the water.’ A few fortunate people have wells in their
ɪ I Kings xv. 18 ; 2 Kings xiv. 14, xvi. 8, xviii. 15.
’ Jer. xxxviii. xι. 3 ɪ Chron. xxvii. 27. 4 ɪ Chron. xxvii. 28.
5 2 Sam. xi. 9. 4 2 Sam. iv. 6. ’ Deut. vi. 9.
8 Judges iii. 23, 25 ; Isa. xxii. 22.
’ Cf. also St. Matt. xvi. 19.
m Prov. v. 15 ; cf. 2 Kings xviii. ɜɪ. ” Jer. ii. 13.