UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE     THROUGH UNDERSTANDING THE             CUSTOMS AND CULTURE                      OF BIBLE TIMES                                          Class #2                       "DWELLINGS"                                By Don LaRose                                Copyright 2011                                                                                All Rights Reserved           Understanding the dwellings in which Bible characters lived has a large part in our understanding of certain portions of the Scriptures. TENT DWELLERS           It is quite evident that some people lived in caves after the time of Adam and Eve.  Job makes reference to such in his time.  Job lived sometime after the flood.  But the first dwellings mentioned in the Bible are tents.  In Genesis 4:20, speaking of a man named Jabel, it says, "...he was the father of such as dwell in tents."  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all lived in tents.  The Children of Israel spent 40 years livng in tents as they traveled around in the wilderness.  Even in the time of King Solomon many Israelites were still living in tents.           Today the Bedouins still live in the same kind of tents as did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Very little has changed in 3,500 years.  The tent is called "Beit sha' ar" meaning, "house of hair."  It is made of material woven from goat hair.  It is a very course, heavy fabric.  It is warm in the winter and acts as a sunshade in the summer.  It is the same material that you read of repeatedly in the Old Testment called "sackcloth."  Sackcloth garments were usually worn in times of sorrow, humility and repentance.           These tents were continually evolving.  Newly woven materials would always be hung on the sides of the tent, frequently outside of older material.  That is because newly woven goat hair leaks.  But the first rain would tighten the fibers and make the cloth waterproof.  Then it would be moved to a more useful position.           Encampments of numerous tents were not unusual in Old Testament times.  The tents of family members would be placed in a circle around the father's tent.  Then the servants would surround those of the family.  Abraham must have had a huge encampment.  The Bible tells us in Genesis 14:14 that he had 318 servants who were trained soldiers who had been born in his household.  "Household" would include the immediate family, extended family, and servants and their families.  You will remember that Israel camped by tribes around the Tabernacle as they traveled in the wilderness.           The "father" of the family always erected his tent in the center of the tent city.  We have used the term "father of the family" twice now.  We will expound upon that at a later time.  But for now let it suffice to say that the "father" or "sheik" always occupied the biggest tent.  In front of his tent, "at the door" so-to-speak, would be a large, well-decorated spear stuck in the ground.  This was a symbol of his authority.           You may remember in II Samuel 26, King Saul is chasing David in the wilderness.  He wanted to kill David.  Nightfall came, and Saul went to sleep in the middle of the camp with his soldiers around him.  The Bible says, "David and Abishai went into Saul's camp and found him asleep, with his spear in the ground beside his head" (I Samuel 26:7).  The spear was the symbol of King Saul's authority, and it was stuck in the ground by his head in the middle of the camp.           The tent is long and divided into two or three compartments by goat hair curtains.  The entrance is a large compartment for the father.  Next is the compartment for the wife or wives.  Then there may be a compartment for the servants and the children.  If it is a large family with several wives, each wife may have a separate tent with her servants (still true today among Bedouins).           You may remember that when Laben was chasing Jacob in Genesis 31, when Laben caught up with Jacob, accused Jacob of taking his idols, Jacob said he had not taken them, and offered him the right to search his tents. Laben searched Jacob's tent, the tents of each of Jacob's wives, and their servants and did not find the idols (although Jacob's wife Rachel had hidden them in her tent).           Each tent had woven rugs to cover the ground.  At night, they rolled out the sleeping mats.  In the center was a pole.  Around the pole you would find a grain mill.  Bottles made out of skins were hung from the pole.  Also hanging from the pole would be pots, kettles and serving dishes.           Notice that back in Genesis 4:20, it said that Jabel "...was the father of such as dwell in tents."  In the Midde Eastern culture a "dwelling place" and a "home" are not the same.  Jabel was not the father of those whose homes were tents, because the Middle Easterner has no such conception in his way of thinking.  The place where he lives is never home.  His dwelling place is where he pitched his tent, or where he goes to at night with his family and flocks.  The Middle East concept is that we are sojourners in this life.  Home is at the end.           You see this concept in the New Testament was well.  In Hebrews we read, speaking of Abraham, "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.  For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God...  ...These all died in faith, not having received the promises but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Hebrews 11:9-10 & 13).           In our society, we give lip service to this idea.  We sing songs like, "This world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through..."  But we have our feet planted firmly on Planet Earth.  Could it be that our possessions have us, instead of being blessings from God.  Remember the immensely rich man Job?  After having lost everything, he was able to say, "The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord." ONE ROOM HOUSES           After the Children of Israel moved into the Promised Land, small villages, and then cities began to grow up.  Some people began to live in houses.  Now, keep in mind, that, as we already have indicated, there were still many Israelites who lived in tents up to and even after the time of King Solomon.  Regardless of whether he lived in a one-room house or in a tent, he spent as little time as necessary in his place of shelter.  The house was a place to go at night.  Otherwise the people spent as much time outside the house as possible.  In addition, the house, because of this philosophy, was not made to draw attention to itself.  While you might pretty-up the inside some, nothing would be done to make the outside look nice.           The Hebrew word sometimes translated house or home in our Enlish Bibles is "Bavith."  It literally means, "shelter."  And the only reason it is ever translated house or home in our English Bibles is because the translators were thinking in terms of our western culture - not the culture of the people to whom the Bible was originally given.           The Rev. Abraham Rihbony, raised in Syria, wrote, "The term 'home' was never invented by a son of Palestine, because he has always considered himself 'a sojourner on the earth.'  His tent and his little house, therefore, were sufficient for a 'shelter' (Bavith) for him and his dear ones during their earthly pilgrimage."  Think how many times in the Bible God is likened to our "shelter" or our "refuge" - our "Bavith."  Just as the Israelite house or tent was the place the family went to at night, God is the place to which we run in the darnkess - the night - of trouble.           Next we need to talk about the construction of the one-room house, because it becomes important in understanding some passages of Scripture.  The walls were made of sun dried mud blocks.  It was very similar to the "adobe" used by the Indians in the southwestern part of the United States.  Sometimes, if an individual were a little wealthier, a shelter might be built of rough hewn sandstone.  Either way, there would be rough joints and holes in the walls that would be patched with mud to act as a sort of mortar.  It helps us understand what is meant when the Prophet Amos wrote of a man who, "...leaned his hand on the wall and a serpent bit him" (Amos 5:19).  It was not unusual for bugs, small vipers and scorpians to make their homes in these crevasses in the walls.           Next we consider the roof.  First, a beam would be laid from one wall to the other.  Then mats made of woven reeds would be stretched between the beam and the walls, forming a kind of net.  Following this, thorn bushes, then branches would be laid over the mat to give it strength.  A coating of clay would then be packed down, followed that.  Sand and pebbles would then be scattered over this.  Then a big stone roller would be used to pack it down.  The roller would be used after every rain.  As you can imagine, it was not unusual for roofs to leak.           Then a wall would be built around the edge of the roof.  Walls were required on all Jewish houses.  Even before the Israelites marched into the Promised Land, God had ordered in the Law, "Every new house must have a guard rail around the edge of the flat rooftop to prevent anyone from falling off bringing guilt to both the house and its owners" (Deuteronomy 22:8).  So, way back in the Books of Moses you have reference to "owner liability."           You can imagine, that a roof top made of clay, sand and stones would grow grass and weeds.  Many times the family would plant grass on the roof.  The grass would grow tall and green during the rainy season, absorbing much of the water; then shrivel up and turn brown or yellowish during the dry season.  The Prophet Isaiah has a message from God for the northern ten tribes.  He accuses them of boasting as to how powerful they are.  They don't believe they need God.  But Isaiah says they are really powerless like, "grass upon the housetops, burnt yellow by the Sun" (Isaiah 37:27).           Now we will look at several passages of Scripture, which can be understood only if we understand the construction of the one-room house during Bible times.  Job wrote, "In the dark they dig through houses" (Job 24:16).  He was talking about thieves who could "dig through" the dirt walls and roofs of the houses of that day.           Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount said, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth where moth and rust consume, and where thieves dig through and steal" (Matthew 6:19).  That's not hard to understand when you consider the construction of the houses of Jesus' day.           In Luke chater 11, Jesus tells the parable of the man who went to a neighbor's house after the door had been shut for the night.  We'll discuss the custom of the door later.  He yells through the door, "Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him; and he will answer from within and say, do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; and I cannot rise and give to you.  I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs" (Luke 11:5-10).  At night the sleeping mats would be rolled out on the floor.  Mother would lie at one end; father on the other, with the children in between.  They literally were in bed with him.  Then pulled over them would be the goat hair blanket that would keep them dry and warm.           Then there is the story of the paralytic who was carried to Jesus by four men.  The story is found in Mark 2.  Jesus was inside teaching to a packed house.  The four could not get in, so they carried the paralytic man up the outside steps to the roof (every house had steps leading to the roof).  As a child I pictured them pulling up square tiles and letting the man down by ropes in front of Jesus, who healed him.  But knowing what you now know about the construction of the roof, do you see a different picture?  The King James says, "they uncovered the roof."  the Livng Bible says, "they dug through the clay roof above His head."  Can you imagine the mess they made below?  Can you imagine the damage they did to the integrity of that roof?  It's a wonder the roof didn't collapse and they all fall through with their friend.           But let's move on to the subject of windows and doors in these one-room houses.  Inside there would be wooden bars to keep robbers from crawling through the windows.  If the family were a little wealthier, they might put a lattice over the window to cover the bars.  In Proverbs, King Solomon was looking out his window observing some young people outside.  He says, "From at the window of my house I looked forth through my lattice" (Proverbs 7:6).  Some translations read "casement."           There is an interesting story in II Kings.  Ahaziah was the king of the northern ten tribes.  He was in his palace in Samaria, and fell through the latticework from the second floor to the first floor.  "Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice (the register) of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself" (II Kings 1:2).  Here the lattice was likely used to bring the warm air up to the second floor from below.  However, it was not sturdy and the king fell through, and eventually died from his injuries.  The story includes a sidebar in which the king sends emissaries to Ekron in Philistia to enquire of an idol as to whether or not he will get better.  The emissaries are intercepted by the Prophet Elijah.  Read it.  It is an interesting story.           Now let's talk about doors.  Most doors were made of sycamore wood, although a wealthy homeowner might have a door made of cedar.  During the time of the kings, a wealthy homeowner might even have hinges on the door.  King Solomon didn't think too much of hinges.  In Proverbs 26:14 he likens the "sluggard" to "hinges" on a door.           The doors were only closed at night.  They were always open during daylight hours.  Since there were no hinges, when the Sun went down, the door was moved into place, then two wooden bars were placed across to secure it.  Even today, you will find most doors in the rural areas, or small towns open all day.  It is and was in invitation to hospitality.  In Revelation 3:8, the risen Christ says, "Behold I set before thee an open door."  A closed door meant the inhabitants had something of which they were ashamed.  In Revelation 3:20, again the risen Lord is speaking, and says, "Behold I stand at the door and knock..."  This passage becomes even more interesting when you discover that Jesus was speaking to a church.  The church is harboring sin (is ashamed), and therefore the door is closed to the Lord Jesus.           As we come to the close of this section, we need to talk about how the roof of the house became an everyday part of their lives.  First, the roof was a place to sleep, especially during hot weather.  When Samuel went looking for Saul in I Samuel 9:26, he found him asleep on the roof of the house.  In Joshua 2:6, Rahab hid the spies under the stalks of flax which she was storing on the roof.  So the roof was a place to store things.  It was a place people went during times of local or national excitement - great commotion, celebration or sorrow (Isaiah 22:1).  We crowd into the streets under similar circumstances.  They would go to the housetop.           Public proclamations were made from the housetop.  Government orders were passed from house to house by this method.  Jesus said, speaking to those who were hearing His teachings, "What ye hear in the ear, proclaim from the housetops" (Matthew 10:27).  Jesus said we will not be able to hide in the day of judgment.  "That which ye have spoken in the ear in closets (that which you think no one knows about), shall be proclaimed upon the housetops (the public address system of the world)" (Luke 12:3).           Peter went up to the housetop for worship and prayer.  In the Book of Acts we read that Peter, "went up to the housetop to pray about the sixth hour (that would have been noon on our clock)" (Acts 10:9).  It was during this prayer time that he received the vision from God telling him to go with the Gospel to the Gentile Roman centurion.           When we understand the houses of the Bible times, it opens our understanding to many comments and statements in the Bible. HOUSES WITH MORE THAN ONE ROOM           In the one-room house there was a walled courtyard in front, with the official front door in the courtyard wall.  In the two-room house, there would be a courtyard with one room on each side; the front door to the outside would be in the courtyard.  In the three-room house, a third room would be built across the back, with, perhaps a covering over a portion of the courtyard between the rooms.  But in any event, all three rooms would front on to the courtyard.  There would never be a door that would allow access from one room to another.           Our homes show a pleasant appearance to the outside.  The Oriental home does not.  The outside of a Middle Eastern house would be considered "bland" or even "ugly" by our standard.  Remember that the Oriental house fronts on the courtyard, not the outside.  The courtyard is the center of the house.  It is considered to be a part of the house, yet it is outside.  In Matthew chapter 26, the Lord Jesus has been arrested.  He has been taken to the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious court.  He was beaten, questioned and mocked.  During this time, Peter, one of His disciples, followed closely behind, and went into the palace.  We read that through all of this, "Peter sat without in the palace" (Matthew 26:69).  That sounds like a contradiction.  How could he be "outside" and still be "in" the palace.  If you undertand that the courtyard is apart of the house, this is no longer a contradiction.           Sometimes families used the walls of the courtyard as a kind of gallery.  They would hang things there that were remembrances of thing that had happened to them, or remembrances of relatives who had passed on.           Often these courtyards would be planted with flowers and trees.  Let me give you an example.  Walking down a very narrow street in the old city of Jerusalem in 1996, we were between two high non-descript stone walls.  There certainly was nothing pretty about them.  We entered a door in the wall, and burst into one of the most beautiful sites we had seen.  It was a large courtyard, probably 40 by 40 feet.  It was filled with shrubs, flowers and trees.  It was a virtual garden paradise.  David talked about this when he wrote, "I am like a green olive tree in the house of God" (Psalm 52:8).  And again he wrote, "Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the court of our God" (Psalm 92:13).  There were no plants or trees in the courtyard of the Tabernacle of God.  But David said I want to spend so much time with the Lord in the Tabernacle that I would be like the trees in the courtyard of my house - as if I were planted there.  Most translations allow for this interpretation, because they attempt to translate the words and ideas directly from the language.  But when I checked several paraphrases, where a great deal of interpretation is added to the translation, I discovered that almost all had looked at these verses from a purely western culture instead of an eastern culture.           In the middle of the courtyard, in many homes located inside walled cities, you would find a cistern.  There are many cisterns in Jerusalem, some of which date back to well before the time of Christ, and some which still hold water today.  They were designed to collect water run-off, and store it for use during the dry season.  The cistern would be located under the courtyard.  The opening might be surrounded by one or two rows of mortared stones or adobe brick.  Lay a board across the top and it makes a wonderful work table for drying grain, grinding grain and preparing meals.           There is an interesting story in II Samuel that deals with a cistern.  David is fleeing his son Absalom who had taken over as king.  David sent some spies to see what Absalom was planning.  The spies were detected.  The story reads, "Nevertheless a lad saw them, and told Absalom: but they went both of them away quickly, and came to a man's house in Bahurim, which had a well (cistern) in his court (courtyard); wither they went down.  And the woman took and spread a covering over the well's (cistern's) mouth and spread ground corn thereon; and the thing was not known" (II Samuel 17:18-19).  It wasn't a well.  It was a cistern that they climbed down into.  It was dry because it was the dry season and all the water that had been stored there was gone.  The woman covered the top and spread corn, and it looked very normal.  When it was checked by Absalom's men, it looked very ordinary.           On chilly day, fires were often built in the courtyards.  Again, speaking of Peter watching what was happening from the courtyard of the palace, we read, "...and the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold; and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself" (John 18:18).  These fires were also used for cooking.           Courtyards were also used for bathing.  In II Samuel we have the incident of David and Bathsheba.  We have a lot of misconceptions about this story, and those misconceptions are because we do not understand the culture of that time and place.           David was on the roof of his palace.  Likely his palace was two or more stories tall, which would give him a good vantage point from which to see the city.  The house of Uriah and his wife Bathsheba was next to the palace.  So David could look right down into the couple's courtyard.  Most translations simply say that she was there "washing."  We assume she was naked, because we take our clothes off when we wash.  The King James says it was "eventide" and she was taking her "evening bath."  The Living Bible says it was "night" and Bathsheba was taking her "evening bath."  None of those reflects what really happened.  Listen to this, "Late one afternoon, David got up from his nap and was walking around the flat roof of his palace.  A beautiful young woman was down below in her courtyard, bathing as her religion required" (II Samuel 11:2).  Notice several things here: 1. David got up from his nap (his siesta).  This was very common at that time because of the heat of the afternoon.  We will look at that in more detail later in this study. 2. From his roof he noticed a beautiful woman in her courtyard.  Since the courtyard was a part of her house, she likely was in her underwear (or at least what they considered their underwear).  We will see this in more detail later.  Peter, in the New Testament, at one point is referred to as"naked" because he was in his underwear.  Most family members wore only "underwear" when in their house.  And it is because of this that David was able to see that she was beautiful.  With her full garb on, he could not have seen her face or bodily features. 3. She was doing her ceremonial washing which was required numerous times throughout the day by the Jewish Law.  She was not taking a bath.  She was required to wash her hands and arms prior to prepaing food, as well as before and after eating.  There were other washings required as well.           Does this shed a different light on your picture of what happened?  Picture the courtyard.  There was a cistern with water in a bowl.  Bathsheba was washing her hands and arms, and perhaps her face and head as well, as required by the Jewish Law.  David looks down on this scene in her house (we might call him a window-peeper or a peeping-Tom today).  She was wearing what we might think of as a white sleeveless dress down to her knees.  That was what women wore as underwear in those days.  While the details may be very different than you pictured before, the end result is the same.  David commits murder and adultry in order to fulfill his fleshly lusts.           We must remember that in Bible times, and still today among many of the Muslim faith, even husbands and wives never see each other completely naked.  In the Book of Genesis there is the story told (and this you should read) where Judah (Jacob's son) failed to fulfill a promise.  His widowed daughter-in-law dressed up like a prostitute, and lured him to her bed.  He did not recognize her because he never even saw her face or body.  Later when she became pregnant, Judah wanted to have her put to death, but she produced his payment for the sexual act.  It was some of his own personal items, including his signant ring.           Most meals were eaten in the courtyard.  If it were clear, they would eat in the open part of the courtyard.  If it was raining, or threatening rain, they might eat under the covered portion of the courtyard.           But let's move on to talk about doors in these houses.  The door would be located in the middle of the front wall of the house, leading directly from the street into the courtyard.  However, it was arranged in such a way that no one could see into the courtyard from the street.  Normally a wall would be built inside the door, open at both left and right, but blocking the view into the courtyard.  Today we might call this a vestibule.  They called it a porch.           In houses built by the wealthy, the door might be quite large, as was the one I mentioned earlier that we went into from that narrow street in Jerusalem.  It might be 10 or 12 feet high, with double doors.  If that were the case, there would always be a smaller door for one person built in to the larger door.  The large doors were for times when many visitors were expected (like a banquet).  The smaller door was used for ordinary occasions.           When Peter was led out of prison by the angel in Acts 12:13, it says he returned to the house where the disciples were praying and "knocked at the door of the gate."  The "door" was the smaller door in the larger "gate."           Only the very wealthy had locks and keys.  Yet they were not unknown in Bible times.  In Isaiah 22, we have a prophecy of the coming Messiah.  In the middle of it, it says, "And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open" (Isaiah 22:22).  Did you notice the size of this key?  It is large enough to be carried on a person's shoulder.  It was not unusual for a key to be as much as one and a half feet long.           The lock was not outside, but rather inside the door.  There would be a hole in the door just large enough for the owner to put his arm with the key inside.  Then he would have to make a right angle turn to reach the lock.  You read of this in the Song of Solomon, where the bride says, "My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door" (Song of Solomon 5:4).           Now let's move on to the porch and the porter.  The passage-way between the door and the courtyard was called the "porch."  One of Peter's three denials took place here.  "And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that were there, this fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth" (Matthew 26:71).  The porter, or a family member, would answer the door.  During the day, the door would be open, so a visitor would call out when they came to the door.  At night, one might have to knock to get the attention of someone inside.  Consider Peter after he was let out of prison by the angel.  He returned to the house where the disciples were praying for his release.  It was nighttime.  "And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came and harkened, named Rhoda.  And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness" (Acts 12:13-14).  Let's look at these verses more closely.  First, Peter knocks.  Then, Rhoda comes to the door, "harkens" (listens) to his voice, and recognizes his voice.  This is very cultural.  In the Middle East people pay much more attention to recognizing voices than we do in our culture.  When someone comes to the door, the person inside will say, "Who?"  The person outside will say, "I."  Now go back and read the above verses with this in mind and you will see that this is exactly what happened.           Jesus, speaking to a church in Revelation 3, said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into him" (Revelation 3:20).  "Hear my voice" - voice recognition.  When Jesus came walking on the water to the disciples in the ship, He did not say, "It is Jesus, do not be afraid."  No, He said, "It is 'I,' be not afraid."  Voice recognition!  The Oriental is trained to recognize voices.           Before we wind up this session, we need to talk about "upper rooms."  Many houses, especially inside walled cities, had rooms built on the roof.  In II Kings 4, we read that a widow built such a room for the Prophet Elisha.  It was furnished with a bed, table, stool and lamp stand.  When I was  boy, many Christian families had what they called "a prophets chamber" in their homes.  It was a place to stay for evangelists, missionaries and other Christian workers who might come to their church to minister or visit.  Today we don't hear of that because of all the modern hotels and motels.  But I learned a lot from Christian workers who stayed in our home, and it had a lot to do with the development of my life.           In the New Testament it was an "Upper Room" to which Jesus went with His disciples to eat the "Last Supper."  After Jesus' crucifixion, the disciples went to an "Upper Room" to pray and wait.  After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples in an "Upper Room."  When the Holy Spirit descended upon them on the Day of Pentecost, they were in an "Upper Room."           Some of these upper rooms were lavishly furnished.  They could have carpets, curtains, awnings, divans and more.  In Amos chapter 6, the prophet refers to the lxury of ivory beds in some of these "Upper Rooms."           In our next session we will look at the diet during Bible times, also mealtime manners and the requirement of hospitality. ____________________________________ New Study Manual Now Available...                                                  Understanding the Bible                                                       By Understanding                                          THE                         CULTURE & CUSTOMS                               OF BIBLE TIMES  * Over 200 pages  * 27 chapters  * Illustrative drawings  * Photos from the Holy Land  * And much more Great for Bible study groups, Sunday School classes, etc. Each chapter ends with "Review Questions," "Things to Remember" and "What Does This Mean to Me?" 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