HOUSE (haus), (Heb. nn, bah'yith ; Gr. aide, oy-kee'ah).
liouses are often mentioned in Scripture, sev eral important passages of which cannot be well understood without a clearer notion of the houses in which the Hebrews dwelt than can be realized by such comparisons as we naturally make with those in which we ourselves live. But things so different afford no grounds for instructive com parison without a knowledge of such facts as can be collected from Scripture, ancient writers, and travelers.
Our information respecting the abodes of men in the ages before the Deluge is, however, too scanty to afford much ground for notice. (See ANTEDILUVIANS.) We may, therefore, leave this early period, and proceed at once to the later times in which the Hebrews flourished.
1. Primary Dwellings. The observations of fered under ARCHITECTURE will preclude the ex pectation of finding among this Eastern people that accomplished style of building which Vitru vius requires, or that refined taste by which the Greeks and Romans excited the admiration of foreign nations. The reason of this is plain. Their ancestors had roved through the country as nomade shepherds, dwelling in tents; and if ever they built huts they were of so light a fabric as easily to be taken down when a change of station became necessary. In this mode of life solidity in the structure of any dwelling was by no means required; much less were regular arrange ment and the other requisites of a well-ordered dwelling matters cf consideration. Under such circumstances as these, no improvement in the habitation takes place. The tents in which the Arabs now dwell are in all probability the same as those in which the Hebrew patriarchs spent their lives.
2. Buildings. On entering Palestine the Is raelites occupied the dwellings of the dispossessed inhabitants; and for a long time no new build ings would be needed. The generation which began to build new houses must have been born and bred in the country, and would nat urally erect buildings like those which already existed in the land. Their mode of building was therefore that of the Canaanites whom they had dispossessed. Of their style of building we
are not required to form any exalted notions. In all the history of the conquest of the coun try by the Israelites, there is no account of any large or conspicuous building being taken or de stroyed by them. It would seem also as if there had been no temples; for we read not that any were destroyed by the conquerors; and the com mand that the monuments of idolatry should be overthrown specifies only altars, groves, and high places—which seems to lead to the same conclu sion ; since, if there had been temples existing in the land of Canaan, they would doubtless have been included. It is also manifest from the his tory that the towns which the Hebrews found in Palestine were mostly small. and that the largest were distinguished rather by the number than by the size or magnificence of their buildings.
It is impossible to say to what extent Solomon's improvements in state architecture operated to the advancement of domestic architecture. He built different palaces. and it is reasonable to conclude that his nobles and great officers fol lowed more or less the models which these pal aces presented. In the East, however, the domes tic architecture of the bulk of the people is little affected by the improvements in state buildings. Men go on building from age to age as their fore fathers built ; and in all probability the houses which we now see in Palestine are such as those in which the Jews, and the Canaanitcs before them, dwelt—the mosques, the Christian churches, and the monasteries being the only new features in the scene.
There is no reason to suppose that many houses in Palestine were constructed with wood. A great part of that country was always very poor in tim ber, and the middle part of it had scarcely any wood at all. But of stone there was no want ; and it was consequently much used in the building of houses. The law of 111oses respecting leprosy in houses (Lev. xiv :33-4o) seems to prove this, as the characteristics there enumerated could only occur in the case of stone walls.