BOTTLE (bOt'el), kkay'meth, Gen.
xxi:14• Hos. vii:5; node, Judg. iv:19; Josh. ix: 4, 13; 've, nek'bel, I Sam. i:24; x:3; 2 Sam. xvi:1; obe, Job xxxii:19; Gr. (lady, Matt. ix:17; Mark ii:22; Luke v:37).
(1) Natural objects, it is obvious, would be the earliest things employed for holding and preserv ing liquids; and of natural objects those would be preferred which either presented themselves nearly or quite ready for use, or such as could speedily be wrought into the requisite shape. The skins of animals afford in themselves more conveniences for the purpose than any other natural product. Accordingly, in the fourth book of the Iliad (1:247) the attendants are represented as bearing wine for use in a ,goatskin bottle, 'Acrk41 alycho. In Herodotus also (ii:121) a passage occurs by which it appears that it was customary among the an cient Egyptians to use bottles made of skins, and from the language employed by him it may be in ferred that a bottle was formed by sewing up the skin and leaving the projection of the leg and foot to serve as a cock; hence it was termed roacuiv,neck of a 'wineskin. This aperture was closed with a plug or a string. In some instances every part was sewed up except the neck; the neck of the animal thus became the neck of the bottle. This alleged use of skin-bottles by the Egyptians is confirmed by the monuments.
(2) The Greeks and Romans also were accus tomed to use bottles made of skins, chiefly for wine. Some interesting examples of those in use among the Romans are represented at Hercula neum and Pompeii.
(3) Skin bottles doubtless existed among the Hebrews even in patriarchial times ; but the first clear notice of them does not occur till Joshua ix :4, where it is said that the Gibeonites, wishing to impose upon Joshua as if they had come from a long distance, took 'old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles old and rent and bound up.' So in the 13th verse of the same chapter: 'These bottles of wine which we filled were new, and behold, they be rent; and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.' Age, then, had the effect of wear ing and tearing the bottles in question, which must consequently have been made of skin. To the same effect is the passage in Job xxxii :19, 'My belly is as wine which bath no vent ; it is ready to burst, like new bottles.' (4) Our Saviour's language (Matt. ix :17 ; Luke V :37, 38 ; Mark ii :22) is thus clearly explained, 'Men do not put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break and the wine runneth out and the bottles perish ;"New wine must be put in new bottles and both are preserved.' To the conception of an English reader who knows of no bottles but such as are made of clay or glass, the idea of bottles breaking through age presents an insuperable difficulty, but skins may become 'old, rent and bound up they also prove, in time, hard and inelastic, and would in such a condition be very unfit to hold new wine, probably in a state of active fermentation. Even new skins might be unable to resist the internal pressure caused by fermentation.
(5) As the drinking of wine is illegal among the Moslems, who are now in possession of West ern Asia. little is seen of the ancient use of skin bottles for wine, unless among the Christians of Georgia. Armenia and Lebanon. where they are still thus employed. In Georgia the wine is stowed in large ox-skins, and is moved or kept at hand for use in smaller skins of goats or kids.
But skins are still most extensively used through out Western Asia for water.
(6) It is an error to represent bottles as being made exclusively of dressed or undressed skins among the ancient Hebrews ( Jones, Biblical Cy clot‘rdia, in roc.). Among the Egyptians orna mental vases were of hard stone, alabaster, glass, ware. Thus, as early as the days of the Judges (iv:to; v:25), bottles or vases composed of some earthy material, and apparently of a superior make, were in use, for, what in the fourth chap ter is termed 'a bottle,' is in the fifth designated 'a lordly dish.' Isaiah (xxx:t4) expressly men tions the bottle of the potters' as the reading in the margin gives it, being a literal translation from the Hebrew, while the terms which the pro phet employs show that he could not have in tended anything made of skin—'he shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel that is broken in pieces, so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water out of the pit.' In the toth chapter, verse t. Jeremiah is commanded: 'Go and get a potter's earthen bottle;' and (verse to) 'break the bottle;' Even so, saith the Lord ivory, bone, porcelain, bronze, silver or gold, and also, for the use of the people generally, of glazed pottery or common earthenware. As early as rhothmes III, assumed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus (B. C. 1490), vases are known to have existed of a shape so elegant and of workmanship so superior, as to show that the art was not, even then, in its infancy.
Many of the bronze vases found at Thebes and in other parts of Egypt are of a quality which cannot fail to excite admiration, and which proves the skill possessed by the Egyptians in the art of working and compounding metals. Their shapes are most various—some neat, some plain, some grotesque; some in form not unlike our cream Jugs, others are devoid of taste as the wine bot ties of our cellars or the flower pots of our con servatories. They had also bottles, small vases and pots used for holding ointment or for other purposes connected with the toilet, which were made of alabaster, glass, porcelain and hard stone. Many specimens of these are in the British Mu seum.
The perishable nature of skin bottles led, at an early period, to the employment of instrument; of a more durable kind. and it is to he presumed that the children of Israel would, during their sojourn in Egypt, learn• among other arts prac• (iced by their masters, that of working in pottery of Hosts (verse I), will I break this people and this city as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again.' (See also Jer. xiii :12-t4.) Figurative. (i) Metaphorically the word bottle is used, especially in poetry, for the clouds considered as pouring out and pouring down water ( Job xxxviii:37), •Irha can stay the bat tles of heaven!' (2) 'Put thou my tears in a battle'—that is, 'treasure them up'—'have a re gard to them as something precious' (Ps. Ivi :8). (3) David was like a bottle in the smoke, when he was wasted with grief and trouble, and ren dered almost useless (Ps. cxix :83). (4) The inhabitant; of Jerusalem were like bottles, when God poured into them the wine of his wrath and burst and ruined them ( Jer. xiii:t2).