28
HEBREW LIFE AND CUSTOM
courtyards.1 The water from such wells appears to have
been drawn by means of a rope and pulley.2 Water was
brought into Jerusalem, and perhaps into other large towns
also, by means of a conduit, and large reservoirs were also
constructed.3
There are several indications that sanitation, as the
word is nowadays understood, was not neglected. Eglon,
King of Moab, could satisfy his natural wants without
leaving his cool sitting-room,4 but it is not clear whether
in this connexion some portable contrivance is meant, or
some permanent arrangement in the outer wall, such as
may still be seen in what remains of the apartment in
which Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in Loch
Leven Castle. There were public conveniences.5 It is
probable that there were sewers, whether open or closed,
but they are not actually mentioned. The sanitary regu-
lations to be observed by an army in the field 6 doubtless
represent what was the rule in country districts at home.
FURNITURE
Furniture, as we understand the term, in the poorest
houses scarcely existed. The bed, which was often a mere
rug on which the clothes worn in the day-time did duty as
bed-clothes,’ appears to have been lifted off the floor,8 and
was probably on a ledge by the wall. The richer houses
appear to have possessed some sort of portable bedsteads.’
Such bedsteads, which might be used as divans during the
day,10 were sometimes of elaborate workmanship inlaid
with ivory.1 ɪ We have no mention of linen sheets, but
there would be a mattress or rug to lie upon, and one or
’ 2 Sam. xvii. ι8, 19. ’ Eccles, xii. 6.
3 2 Kings xviii. 17, xx. 20; Isa. vii. 3.
4 Judges iii. 24. s 2 Kings x. 27 ; cf. Ezra vi. ɪɪ.
6 Deut. xxiii. 12, ɪɜ. 7 Exod. xxii. 26, 27.
8 ɪ Sam. xxviii. 23 ; cf. Gen. xlviii. 2, xlix. 33.
9 Cant iii. 7-11. ‘ Litter ’ (R.V.) is the same word as is translated
‘ bed’ in the passage referred to above ; cf. ɪ Sam. xix. 15 ; 2 Sam.
iii. 31. " Amos iii. 12. " Amos vi. 4.
BEDS AND TABLES 29
more coverlets, which might be of rich materials.1 It is
contemptuously said of the King of Babylon 2 in his death
that his under mattress consists of worms, and that his
coverlet is of maggots. Og’s ‘ iron bedstead ’, which was
long to be seen in Rabbah of Ammon,3 has been explained
as a sarcophagus, perhaps of basalt. It may, however,
have been a state bed, the huge size of which was not due
to the stature of the king, but merely to megalomania.
The table {shulhan) in the ordinary houses was not
necessarily more than a mat or skin spread on the ground
and reserved for food. Such seems to be the meaning in
the description of the careless feasting in Babylon * where
by sâphïtk we are perhaps to understand the carpet spread
on the floor round the mat or skin on which the food was
placed. The use of the same word shulhɑn, however, in the
description of the Temple furniture certainly implies that
it might be a table in our sense of the word ; and a like
inference is to be drawn from Amos’s picture of those who,
while reclining on ivory couches and sprawling on
divans, ate the flesh of lambs and fatted oxen.3 In houses
where there was a raised table there would be stools or
chairs for those who sat at it,6 and, in the houses of the
wealthy, divans.7
It is somewhat strange that we have no mention among
household furniture of anything of the nature of a chest ;
but the use of the same word to denote a coffin,8 the so-
called t ark of the covenant and a chest for the recep-
tion of contributions to the restoration of the Temple,10
suggests that the kind of thing indicated by the word was
not unknown. Valuables, such as uncoined silver, used in
commercial transactions, were probably placed in earthen
vessels, and, as in the days of Samuel Pepys, hidden in the
ground. Earthenware jars, of various sizes and shapes,
, Prov. vii. 16. * Isa. xiv. ɪr. 3 Deut. iii. ɪɪ. « Isa. xxi. 5.
5 Amos vi. 4 ; cf. Ezek. xxiii. 41. 6 2 Kings iv. ɪo.
7 Amos iii. 12, vi. 4 ; Ezek. xxiii. 41 ; Esther i. 6.
8 Gen. I. 26. ’ Exod. xxxv. 12. “ 2 Kings xii. ɪo.