03. CHAPTER III SHEPHERDS AND PEASANTS

CHAPTER III SHEPHERDS AND PEASANTS The hope of the field is not the heap of the threshing-floor.
-- Proverb.

I. Pastoral Life 1. Shepherds and Farmers, their Mutual Relations. — The charge of flocks and the tillage of the soil have always been the two chief employments in Palestine. They were supplementary to each other, one providing clothing, the other food. The Bible makes them equally primitive (Genesis 4:2). The home life was affected by them; they created the trades, and shaped the civilisation of the villages and towns. In the Bible the duties and dangers of the shepherd, and the methods and implements of the farmer, are constantly referred to when natural objects are used to explain and emphasise spiritual truths. But while the two flourished side by side, of equal antiquity, and mutually helpful, they were rival competitors for the soil, and wherever an exclusively pastoral class came in contact with an exclusively agricultural class the relationship became one of distrust and defiance. This was chiefly owing to the nature of the land itself and the pesition of the Israelites in it. There were plains and valleys for corn, but they lay open on all sides to the sheep and goats. With the exception of vineyards and vegetable gardens, the fields were never protected by walls and fences. Each man’s property had its boundary stones or natural land -marks. There was no rotation of crops; hay was unknown, and there were no fields of meadow-grass. There were hills and wildernesses suitable for pasture, but to whom did they belong?

If strangers wished to occupy them, who could hinder them 1 The shepherd’s chief thought was to feed his sheep, and he naturally wanted as much of the land as he could get for that purpose. He did not remain in one place, but moved with the season of the year, taking his flock to the higher hills in the hot summer, and in winter going southwards and descending to the warmer plains. Jacob put three days’ journey between his own and Laban’s flocks, and Jacob’s sons setting out from Hebron went as far north as Shechem and Dothan. The different villages had common access to the uncultivated lands around them, and as their flocks were in the charge of their owners, or of keepers appointed by them, any trespass upon the local corn-fields, or any act of oppression, could be punished by village law. But the case was different when a large pastoral encampment like that of Abraham with over three hundred men approached the borders of agriculture. Such shepherd bands came in force, and as they passed along did not scruple to send their flocks among the standing corn, or to reap and carry off the ripe harvest of the farmer. These were the Children of the East, now called the Bedawin, who are always referred to in the Bible as a menace to social rights and civilised life. Where there was no central government ruling over all each class attended to its own interests, and might was right. It was the penalty that Israel paid for failing to possess the whole land of promise, that it had on its eastern border the lawless pastoral tribes who, whenever the kingdom was brought low by internal strife or war with its neighbours, were always ready to pour in and recover lost ground. Such was the class difference and rivaby of interest in the soil that separated agriculture and the shepherd life. Owing to the danger from this cause, the citizenship of the village formed not so much a municipality for the management of internal affairs as a sort of militia for resisting outside oppression. The sheikh of the wandering tribe was met by the sheikh of the village, and in this way the village was able to receive strangers either as guests to be welcomed with honour, or as enemies to be driven off. To this day when one inquires as to the population of a certain village, the answer is given in military terms that it has so many guns. Its fighting power is its population. On the pastoral side it has been the same ever since Israel marched out of Egypt.

Thus shepherds from a distance, like the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their retinue of servants and large flocks, had to make a covenant with the local authorities. Abraham strengthened his position by alliance with Aner, Eschol, and Mamre. Lot seems to have identified himself with Sodom and its peasant proprietors, leaving histent, and dwelling in a house within the city gate.

2. The Shepherd’s Outfit.— In the Bible the allusions to shepherd life and the figurative terms borrowed from it refer chiefly to its peaceful aspects. Its enemies were wild animals and robbers. The chief occasion of strife among the shepherds, as among the farmers, was connected with the water-supply, the right of access to wells, springs, and brooks (Genesis 13:7; Genesis 29:8; Exodus 2:17). The care of the flocks and the work of the field flourished side by side. The shepherd belonged to the village, and was maintained in his right to feed his sheep and goats among the rocks and trees of neighbouring hills, and in the corn-fields lying bare after the harvest in May. The personal appearance of the Eastern shepherd has changed as little as his sheep and his simple duties towards them.

(1) Cloak — He still wraps himself in his large cloak of sheep-skin, or thick material woven of wool, goat-hair, or camel-hair. This protects him from cold and rain by day, and is his blanket at night. The inner pouch in the breast is large enough to hold a new-born lamb or kid

GOURDS AND EARTHEN PITCHERS. when it has to be helped over rough places, or on account of sickness or injury has to be taken to a place of shelter, or nursed by the family at home (Isaiah 40:11).

(2) Scrip. — In the summer he may remain in the mountains a month at a time, his only communication with the village being when a fresh supply of bread is brought to him. This he puts into a bag which hangs at his side, the shepherd’s scrip (1 Sam. 17:40), used also by muleteers and others on a journey. It is a bag made of the dressed skin of a kid, and into it he puts his stock of bread, olives, cheese, raisins, and dried figs.

(3) Gourd. — As a drinking-vessel for holding either water or milk he carries a light unbreakable pitcher made of a gourd. Its shape seems to be the original of the vases in glass and earthenware.

(4) Rod. — Hanging by his side, or sheathed in a long narrow pouch attached to his cloak, is his oak club. It is carefully chosen, a straight young tree being often torn up for this purpose, and the bulb at the beginning of the root being trimmed to make the head of the club. The handle is dressed to the required thickness, with a hole at the end by which it is tied to the belt, or hangs from the

SHEPHERD’S ROD AND STAFF. wrist like a riding whip. Into the head he drives nails with large heads like those of a horse-shoe. It is the “ rod “ of Psalms 23:4. It appears in Assyrian sculpture, as the emblem of power in the hand of the king, and was the original of the sceptre, mace, and baton.

(5) Staff. — The “ staff,” mentioned along with the rod in Psalms 23:1-6, is made of the same wood, but is about 6 feet long, quite plain, rarely with a fork or crook at one end. It is a help in clambering over rocks, in striking off leaves and small branches, in chastising loitering sheep and fighting goats, and on it the shepherd leans as he stands watching his flock. The ordinary walking staff of Orientals is rather longer than that used in the West, is held by the thin end a few inches from the top, and serves the double purpose of rod and staff, a weapon of defence and a support when standing or walking. Such was the staff in the hand of the prophet as he journeyed from place to place (2 Kings 4:29) — a peaceful help on the toilsome and dusty road. The two uses, for leaning upon and for striking, are contrasted in Exodus 21:19-20. Both are included in the metaphors suggested by it. Pharaoh is compared to an untrustworthy staff of bruised reed (Isaiah 34:6); and bread is a staff (Psalms 105:16) “which strengtheneth man’s heart” (Psalms 104:15).

(6) Sling. — The shepherd’s sling, with which David was familiar, and in the use of which the men of Benjamin were so skilful (Judges 20:16), was made of goat-hair. The pad for the stone was of a rounded, diamond shape, with a small slit in the middle, so that when a stone was pressed into it, it closed around like a bag. It received its name in Hebrew, as in Arabic, from the slightly concave form in which it was woven. It was “ the hollow of a sling” (1 Samuel 25:29, R.V.) In the two strings strands of white and black hair were artistically interwoven, one of them at least having an opening at the end for the fingers. Besides being used against robbers and wild animals, it did the work of the Western sheep-dog, for with it the shepherd could drop a stone near a sheep lagging behind, and startle it into a sense of loneliness and danger. At the present day, when a quarrel arises between the youth of neighbouring villages, a sorie of lads is sometimes made from each, and sling-practice is indulged in, usually at long range. The leading idea of the Oriental sling, in a figurative sense, is distance, rather than accuracy of direction. An Arabic proverb describes the habitual tale-bearer as one who puts a secret in a sling. He tries how far he can throw it. This is the thought of Proverbs 26:8, and the translation given in the Authorised Version, and. in the margin of the Revised, seems to be the correct one. The more firmly the stone is packed into the sling, the better it is discharged from it, and so it happens when honour is thrust upon a fool, that is, a man who has no idea of religious duty and moral consequences. The use of the sling was exactly the opposite of that of the scrip — the one throwing out, the other keeping what was put into it. This is probably the meaning of Abigail’s words to David, when she contrasted “ the bundle of life” and its contents with the sling and its stones (1 Samuel 25:29). The man standing in front of her most likely had both his sling and provision-pouch on his person, and while the souls of his enemies would be like stones in the sling, things to be thrown away, his soul would be guarded and kept by the Great Shepherd like the necessaries in the scrip of life. The meaning in one case is so precise and picturesque that an allusion equally exact and obvious is required for the other.

3. Management of the Flock. — (1) The shepherd’s presence. — By day and by night the shepherd is always with his sheep. As already explained, this was necessary on account of the exposed nature of the land, and the presence of danger from wild animals and robbers.

One of the most familiar and beautiful sights of the East is that of the shepherd leading his sheep to the pasture. He often has a dog or two with him, especially in the lonely and remote parts of the mountain pasture. But these are large, fierce animals, that can offer battle to the wolf, and by night give warning of the approach of thieves. He depends upon the sheep to follow, and they in turn expect him never to leave them.

They run after him if he appears to be escaping from them, and are terrified when he is out of sight, or any stranger appears instead of him. He calls to them from time to time to let them know that he is at hand. The sheep listen and continue grazing, but if any one else tries to produce the same peculiar cries and guttural sounds, they look around with a startled air and begin’ to scatter.

(2) The shepherd’s protection. — As he is always with them, he is constantly providing for them. He is not only ready to protect them, but conducts them to the most suitable ground by the best way; gives them music on his reed flute, to which the younger ones sometimes respond by capering around him; strips leaves from the branches; leads them at noon to the shelter of a cliff, or to the shade of a walnut or willow tree beside the well or brook; and in every possible way lives among them and for them. At sunset he conducts them back to’ the fold, where, during the night, they may lie down in safety, and mix with several other flocks. The sheepfold is often a large cave, or an enclosure in a sheltered hollow made by a rough stone wall, which has, along the top, a formidable fringe of thorns like furze and blackthorn, kept in position by stones laid upon it. At the mouth of the cave, or at the side of the wall near the entrance, the shepherds have a covered place made of branches, a tabernacle such as Peter wished to make on the Mount of Transfiguration, and here, as on the night of the Nativity at Bethlehem, they keep watch over their flocks by night. The sheep require this constant and complete protection, as they have no thought of defending themselves. While goats, on the appearance of a wolf, will run together and form a solid mass, with horns to the front, the sheep are immediately scattered and fall an easy prey (John 10:12).

One of the most interesting sights of shepherd life is to watch a flock fording a stream. The shepherd leads as usual, and the sheep follow in a string at his heels, but in the middle of the stream they begin to lose their footing and drift with the current. The shepherd hurries forward, grasping first one and then another, pushing as many as he can reach in front of him and hauling others up against the pressure of the water. As soon as he reaches the opposite side he hastens along the bank and draws out those that have been swept down, and have reached the other side faint with the struggle. The sheep fare best that keep nearest the shepherd. Such a deliverance seems to be referred to in Psalms 18:16, “He took me. He drew me out of many waters.’’

(3) The shepherd’s knowledge. — As he is always with them, and so deeply interested in them, the shepherd comes to know his sheep very intimately. Many of them have pet names suggested either by the appearance or character of the particular sheep, or by some incident connected with it. At sunset the sheep are counted, usually two by two; but as a rule when they are brought together, the absence of any one is immediately /eft. It is not only that one sheep is amissing, but the appearance of the whole flock seems to want something. This knowledge is so intimate and instinctively reliable that the formality of counting is often dispensed with. One day a missionary, meeting a shepherd on one of the wildest parts of the Lebanon, asked him various questions about his sheep, and among others if he counted them every night. On answering that he did not, he was asked how he knew if they were all there or not. His reply was, “ Master, if you were to put a cloth over my eyes, and bring me any sheep and only let me put my hands on its face, I could tell in a moment if it was mine or not.” Such is the fulness of meaning in the words of the Good Shepherd, “I know mine own, and mine own know Me” (John 10:14).

There is, however, the hireling shepherd, and he is as notorious for unfaithfulness as the true shepherd is for fidelity to his charge. His witness, like that of a pigeon-breeder (on account of using decoys) is not accepted in an Oriental law-court. He is in a position of duty, without any sense of duty, and no one to watch how he does it.

Prowess can get no praise, and desertion can be screened by lies. He receives very little pay, and he has frequent opportunities of selling kids and sheep to passing travellers, or of sending them to the market by the hand of relatives. And at the end of the season he accounts for them asstolen by Bedawin, devoured by wolves, or fallen from precipices. The shepherd’s season of rejoicing is at the time of sheep-shearing in May and June. The flocks have been increased by the season’s lambs; milk, butter, and cheese are abundant; pasture is still plentiful for those who know where to seek it, and the warm summer weather makes out-door life delightful by day and night. It is the time of invitations and feasting both among the Bedawin and the shepherds of the villages. It was most probably at such a time that Job’s sons met for festivity. The same celebration is referred to in Genesis 31:19; Genesis 38:13, and 1 Samuel 25:2. As might be expected from a calling so important and familiar to the Israelites, many comparisons and lessons are drawn from the pastoral life. The constant presence of the shepherd among his sheep and his protection of them were arresting features that were easily transferred to higher relationships. Psalms 23:1-6. remains the simplest and profoundest expression of trust in God. The dependence of the sheep upon the shepherd is not a figure for the beginning of the spiritual life merely — to be left behind when we know as we have been known; the redeemed and glorified are still being led to the living fountains of waters (Revelation 7:17). The bond was such that under this form rebellious Israel could plead, “Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?” (Psalms 74:1). Everything in the way of devoted love, intimate knowledge, and protective power was summed up in the title, “Jesus that great Shepherd of the sheep “ (Hebrews 13:20). The parables of Luke 15:3-7 and John 10:1-18 are in the same line. Compare also Psalms 79:13; Psalms 95:7; Ezekiel 34:8. When Peter was made glad and strong by forgiveness and restoration, the renewed trust of Christ’s service was given to him in a form rich with chivalrous associations, “Feed my sheep“ (John 21:16). The utter helplessness of sheep without a shepherd is very frequently alluded to in the Bible, and the figure is applied in all its fulness to moral and religious matters, such as the manifold facilities for concealment, loitering and error in the wilderness of life, the losses and sorrows that occur when the will is without definite leading and submission, and the evils that attend both false alarms and real dangers (Numbers 27:17; 1 Samuel 25:2; 1 Kings 22:17; Psalms 119:176; Isaiah 53:6; Jeremiah 1:4, Jeremiah 1:17; Ezekiel 34:6, Ezekiel 34:12).

Finally, there was the dumb submission of the sheep, when being shorn or about to be killed, that was made the emblem of silent resignation and hopeless doom.

Israel could often plead the resemblance of its condition to such sealed fate and calm despair; and the figure enters— into the great prophecy of Is. hii. He who sent out His disciples to be “ as sheep in the midst of wolves “ (Matthew 10:16) was to be first “a Lamb slain” (Revelation 5:12).

II. Agricultural Life When it is mentioned that French railway trucks are now supplanting the camels in bringing in wheat from the rich plain south of Damascus, that an American engineer is sinking Artesian wells at Sidon for irrigating the land, and that every summer English steamers lie off Gaza loading barley for Scotland, the suspicion naturally arises that the farmer of Palestine has left the shepherd behind, and that his life is no longer a reminder of patriarchal methods. But the land is still a land of corn and wine and oil; and the sowing and reaping, the treading of grapes in the winepress, the beating of the olive-tree for its berries, — these and many other details of peasant life are the same to-day as when Ruth gleaned and Elisha followed the plough.

1. Grain. — The chief grain-fields are the Syrian plain between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, the Hauran east of Galilee, the plains of Esdraelon and Sharon, and the plateau around Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron. The appearance of the level land without walls, fences, or hedges is that of a great green sea. On the sloping ground, as on the sides of all the watercourse valleys, called wadies, the land is laid off in stair-like ridges, each leading into the one above or below it so that all can be ploughed continuously. These terraces serve a double purpose; the ground is cleared of rock and large stones in building the low walls, and by the succession of levels the soil is kept in its place and not swept down to the foot of the valley by the winter rains. All over the land there are terraces fallen down, and overgrown, and hardly to be recognised, indicating at once the resemblance and the difference between the ancient and modern civilisations. The cereals sown are chiefly wheat, plain and bearded, barley, and spelt or vetch, translated rye in Exodus 9:32; Isaiah 28:2, Isaiah 28:5 and in Ezekiel 4:9, fitches. Oats are unknown. Besides the above are millet, beans, and lentils (Ezekiel 4:9), also pulse (Daniel 1:12), under which is included everything of the nature of pease or beans, in fact all seed-food apart from wheat and barley.

(1) Sowing. — The time for sowing grain is when the soil has been softened for the plough by the first rains in the beginning of October. Millet, however, is sown in summer upon irrigated land. When winter comes on cold and wet, before the barley is put into the ground, it is sown in the beginning of February. When the soil is very rough it is customary to plough twice, but ordinarily the seed is sown and then ploughed in. The farmer walks in front scattering the seed, and one of the family or a servant follows immediately with the plough. In the parable the seed that fell on the footpath could be

ORIENTAL PLOUGH. picked up by the birds as it was not covered like the rest (Matthew 13:4). The levelling-up of the ground in terraces often causes broad slabs of rook to be thinly covered over with soil. Thorns abound everywhere, growing with great rapidity and strength. They are either collected and burnt on the field, or used as fuel, or ground on the threshing-floor as fodder for the cattle (Matthew 13:5-7).

Barley is ripe in April and May, wheat in May and June, there being much variety as to time, owing to difference in elevation from the Jordan valley to the fields around the cedars over 6000 feet above the sea. The latter rains in March refresh the standing crops, delaying {40} the time of harvest, but filling out the grain before it finally ripens. A field of wheat or barley has the pale white appearance of oats at home. The rain has ceased for three months and the stalks and ears become perfectly dry.

(2) Harvest. — The stalks are either cut with the sickle or torn up by the roots, and the sheaves are carried to the threshing-floors on the backs of men, donkeys, horses, and

THRESHING FLOOR camels, carts not being used for this purpose as they once were (Am. 2:13). The chief perils to the crop apart from the nature of the soil and the hands of robbers, are from mildew or sweating in soft misty weather, or blasting by the dry heat of the east wind (Deut. 28:22; 2 Chron. 6:28; Am. 4:9), and occasionally from locusts.

Though the crops in Syria do not present such an appearance of solid mass as in Egypt, the soil is in many places exceedingly fertile, and the return corresponds with the standards cited in the parable (Matt. 13:8).

(3) Threshing. — The threshing-floor is a circular piece of {41} level ground about 20 to 30 feet in diameter, in an open, breezy locality near the village. The ground is carefully levelled and cleaned, and has around it a roughly-placed row of large stones to keep the straw from being scattered about. Sheaves are unbound and sprinkled over it, till the straw lies about a foot deep. The simplest mode of threshing is to drive cattle and donkeys over the dry straw, but the contrivance of the threshing-board is generally

THRESHING AND WINNOWING INSTRUMENTS resorted to. This consists of thick planks nailed together, making an oblong of 5 by 4 feet, having lumps of rough basaltic rock let into the under-surface of the boards. Less frequently it is a wooden frame furnished with small wheels below it. A pair of oxen are yoked to it, and a man stands upon it, goad in hand, and drives the oxen round from morning till evening. These are the oxen that must not lie muzzled, but are allowed to pick up straws as often as they wish to do so (Deuteronomy 25:4; 1 Corinthians 9:9; 1 Timothy 5:15). When sufficiently threshed the broken straws, grain, and chaff are piled up in the centre of the threshing-floor, more sheaves are sprinkled over the surface, and the threshing is resumed till the work is done, or there is no room for more in the centre of the ring.

(4) Winnowing. — This is done by the shovel and the fan (Isaiah 30:24). The fan is a simple wooden pitchfork. By it the compound of straw, chaff, and grain is tossed in the air. The chaff flies away over the hillside (Psalms 1:4), and where it accumulates at the great public threshing-floors it is burnt up. The straw is deposited a few yards off, while the grain falls at the feet of the winnower. In this pile there is still a good deal of husk and straw, and it is at this concluding stage of the winnowing that the shovel is brought into use. This work at the threshing-floors is carried on all day, and from harvest time till the ripened grapes claim attention in the month of August; and in the great grain-growing districts it is continued till the close of September. The owners sleep by the threshing-floors or appoint watchmen. When the grain is piled into a cone it is sealed by having a large wooden seal pressed upon it here and there all around. The attempt to abstract anything would instantly obscure the marks of the seal. The sealing is either in the interests of the working-partners or owners, or that the gross yield may remain intact until the Government official takes his tithe. It is sealed unto the appointed day of weighing and measuring. The use of the seal is often referred to in connection with documents and treasures, as well as with the threshing-floors, and suggests profound spiritual meanings (Daniel 12:8; Romans 15:28; Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 4:30). Among the peasantry of the present day any recommendation of a winnowing-machine is met by the remonstrance that their fathers did it in this way, and at the winnowing season there is nothing else to do. The further and final cleansing that the grain undergoes goes by means of the sieve we shall speak of in connection with food and domestic life.

2. The Vineyard. — The vine has always had an important place among the industries of Palestine. Its culture is one of the leading characteristics of the land (Deuteronomy 8:8; Psalms 80:1-19; Isaiah 5:1-30; Ezekiel 17:1-24)

(1) Locality. — Vineyards are found all over the country, but the position most suitable is the hillside, or.the gently- sloping ground at the foot of a hill. The vine likes open, loose soil into which it can sink its deep roots and reach the moisture that drips down over the surface of the mountain rock. Above ground it must have plenty of air and sunshine, and by night the dew rests upon its leaves refreshingly, but its source of nourishment and strength is in the deep crevices of the rock beyond the reach of the sun’s heat.

(2) Preparation. — The vineyard requires a great deal of preparatory work. A wall has to be built round it. The irregular rocky ground has to be laid off in terraces, one below the other on the slope, varying in width from 1 to 4 or 5 yards; large rocks have to be broken up and built with other stones into these successive rough walls, varying in height from 2 to 6 feet. Then, much more thoroughly than is thought of for the grain fields, the ground must be cleared of thorns and thistles. In the case of a large vineyard a winepress has then to be dug, and a room made for the watchman. The ground has to be well gone over with the hoe, and repairs on the terraces have to be attended to. On account of the constant attention required by the vineyards we read that at the time of the captivity of Judah, some of the poorest of the land were left to sow the fields and to keep the vineyards in order (2 Kings 25:12). The neglected vineyard is described as covered with thorns and strong hardy weeds, and as having the wall broken down by the rain torrent (Proverbs 24:30-31). It is the sum total of such labours that is spread to view when the question is asked, “ What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? “ (Isaiah 5:4)

(3) Growth of the, vine. — This is very rapid and luxuriant. The slips are set in the ground about 12 feet or more apart to give space for the running branches. The young vine is cut back and not allowed to bear fruit till after the third year. In April and May the vine blossom is out and gives forth a sweet, delicate perfume (Song of Solomon 2:13). The branches covered with large richly-green leaves rapidly cover the ground; the tendrils droop over the terrace-walls, run over rocky boulders, or, taking possession of an oak-tree, brighten its quiet foliage with their sparkle and transparency, and wave from its topmost branches in a perfect riot of life and endless energy. It must be a very rich, happy, and triumphant life that is described by the figure, “ I am the vine, ye are the branches “ (John 15:5).

(4) Fruit. — There may be many kinds of grapes, even in one vineyard, both of the purple and the green sorts. Some villages are celebrated for this variety, one having as many as twelve or twenty different kinds in its vineyards; others are famous for the perfection to which they have brought one particular kind. There are many forms and varieties of flavour. Names are suggested by something in the size or colouring of the grape or the general appearance of the cluster. Thus we have on Lebanon, Brides fingers (of long tapering form, very smooth and translucent). Maiden’s cheeks (with a blush of colour on each side), Mule’s head (a large clumsy-looking purple grape), and Hen-and-Chickens (a cluster having large green grapes surrounded by many small seedless ones about the size of currants). {45}

(5) Uses of the grape. — (a) Fresh ripe grapes, eaten with bread, form a chief article of food during September and October. (b) Raisins. These are dried in a prepared levelled corner of the vineyard. During the process of drying under the sun, they are frequently turned over and sprinkled with olive oil to keep the skin moist. They are preserved in bunches or scattered over the ground. They form an important item of the winter’s stores among the

WINEPRESS peasantry, and they seem to have been highly valued in Bible times as a convenient and refreshing article of food (1 Samuel 25:5; 1 Samuel 30:12; 2 Samuel 16:1; 1 Chronicles 12:40). (c) Wine and syrup. These were made at the wine-press, when the grapes were fully ripe and the vintage season began to near its end in the beginning of October. The winepress consists of two troughs cut in the solid rock, with a partition about 3 inches thick left between them. One is higher than the other, and this upper one is a large flat square, about a foot or a foot and a half deep.

Here the grapes are thrown in and trodden by the feet of men, women, and children — usually of the same family, or relatives having a joint interest in the vineyard. As they tread they keep time with hand-clapping and snatches of song (Isaiah 16:10; Jeremiah 48:33). Such social gladness contrasts with the case of solitude and sorrow referred to in Isaiah 63:3. After being thus pressed by the feet, the grape skins are collected into a heap, a large flat stone is laid upon them, and they are subjected to pressure from a large weighted beam. The juice flows into the lower trough through the opening in the partition. It is smaller but deeper; if the upper be 6 feet long by 5 feet broad, the lower one will be about 4 feet long by 2 feet broad, but about 3 feet deep. If the position of the rook allows it, a hole near the bottom lets off the juice into vessels for collecting it. Some of it is allowed to become sour for use as vinegar. The juice of the dark grape is generally made into claret of a somewhat sour, astringent taste, and that of the white or green grape is boiled a little and made into sweet wine. Some of it is distilled and made into a spirit, which the modern Jews call by a Hebrew name, burning wine. The people of the land know nothing of unfermented wine. There is no custom of drinking newly-strained grape-juice such as might be suggested by the dream of Pharaoh’s butler. The meaning evidently is that, dreamlike, the wine-making process was in the vision as rapid as the ripening of the grapes. Intemperance is too farreaching and deep-seated an evil to be settled by the etymology of a word or the customs of one people or country. Orientals are not inclined to intemperance. The warm climate very quickly makes it a cause of discomfort and disease, and under the influence of wine the excitable Orientals are easily tempted into quarrelling and crime. It is regarded as a shameful vice, is of rare occurrence, and when it does occur is kept out of sight (1 Thessalonians 5:7). Wine is entirely forbidden to the Moslems on account of the moral evil so often connected with it. In the recitation of poetry and the stories of the heroes of Islam the bringing in of wine is constantly referred to, but it is regarded merely as a stage expression that has nothing to do with real life. The Arabs in their proverbs speak of it as expelling reason and putting in its place remorse. When used by Orientals it is in the winter season and at meals, but while its strengthening value at certain times is recognised, the habit of winedrinking is generally associated with excessive festivity and abuse.. In the Jewish Prayer-book one of the thanksgivings is for the creation of the vine, and on the return from the synagogue, to which in the morning they go fasting, a glass of wine is drunk with this blessing pronounced over it. This custom was perhaps alluded to by Peter on the day of Pentecost as showing the impossibility of intoxication at 9 A.M. — an hour when Jews had but newly returned from morning prayer.

Syrup is made by boiling the juice of the grape until it reaches the consistency of honey. It is intensely sweet, and, having much the same colour and consistency, it is in Hebrew called by the same name as honey.

(6) Dangers to the vineyard. — The chief enemies are the locust; the east wind withering the grapes with dry heat, and the south-west wind bringing up soft mist and moist warmth from the sea; the wild animals, such as jackals, foxes, and bears; and the attempts of robbers and petty thefts of passing travellers. Against men and animals the watchman is appointed over a vineyard or group of vineyards. He is there day and night to frighten away animals and challenge and report upon intruders. He roams about at night, and in the daytime he has in a {48} conspicuous spot a booth (Is. 1:8, R.V.) made of four stout poles fixed into the ground, with a boarding lashed across half-way up, and all covered with oak leaves.

Here the watchman sits and watches by day. When the season is over and the vineyard bare, the booth gets stripped and bent by the wind and rain, and is a picture of neglect and desolation.

VINEYARD BOOTH.

Such was the daughter of Zion in the time of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:8). Sometimes a permanent stone-built room takes the place of the booth. It serves both as a watch-tower and a place of shelter, in which the wine can be boiled and syrup made if the weather should prove cold and raing at the time. Such was the tower of the parable (Matthew 21:33).

Pruning has to be done in December or January, not when the vine is in blossom and foliage, as it bleeds so profusely. Vineyards are either tended by their owners, or are let out to husbandmen who receive for their labour half of the produce. The promise of fruitful seasons (Leviticus 26:5) made the time of corn-threshing in July and August run into the grape harvest of September and October, and this again trenched upon the time of ploughing and sowing in November.

3. The Olive-Tree. — The olive-tree is a very characteristic feature of Oriental landscape. It is of a dusty silvery gray, and contrasts with the bright pure green of the mulberry, apricot, orange, and other trees. It presents many changes of colour as it is seen with the light upon or against it, in the morning, at mid-day, or at evening. A grove of olive-trees resembles a clump of willows or silver birches in foliage, though inferior in the grace of form and movement of the branches. The dark stems shine through the branches, and the light red soil which it likes best’ gives the warmth of tone which the tree itself lacks. Such is the beauty of the olive. It bears fruit after seven years, and is at full fruit-bearing strength in its fourteenth year. It is fruitful in alternate years, and one tree will yield from a dozen to twenty gallons of oil. The berries are gathered in October, about the time of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. As the trees have seldom any enclosing wall around them, or those in one enclosure may have different owners, the sheikh appoints a day for the gathering, so that each may attend to his own. The tree is about twenty feet high and is easily climbed, and the branches are beaten from the ground by a long stripped palm branch (Isaiah 17:6; Isaiah 24:13). Whatever remains after the appointed day may be gleaned by any one (Deuteronomy 24:20; Isaiah 17:6).

Old trees have suckers rising from the stem, close to the ground, six or seven, or a dozen or more of them rising in a circle around the gnarled and often rent bole. These are the “ olive-branches “ springing up to take the place of the parent tree (Psalms 128:3). A graft is inserted into the stem of a wild olive, which for the purpose is cut down near to the ground, and all below is reckoned as root and feeder. Hence the grafting of the heathen Gentile upon the stock of the Bibletaught Israelite was contrary to nature or custom (Romans 11:24). Even the planted slip of a fruitful olive is improved by being cut down and grafted. It is remarkable for the multitude of blossoms that it casts off (Job 15:33). Olives form the principal accompaniment and relish of the bread of the labouring man. Bread and olives in Syria correspond to the porridge and milk of Scotland. Hiram’s workmen were supplied with them (2 Chronicles 2:10). Olive oil is extensively used in soapmaking and cooking. The wood was used in Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 6:31), and is still in Jerusalem put to ornamental uses.

4. Fig-Trees. — These take rank after the vines and olive-trees in number and fruit-bearing value, although at the present day the most important after wheat and barley is the mulberry-tree, as its leaves are the food of the silkworm.

(1) Appearance. — The olive, fig, and pomegranate trees, and also the larger walnut and locust-bean trees, while differing in the colour of their foliage, are all widespreading, well -filled trees, and at a distance resemble large apple and pear trees, the pomegranate being usually rather smaller and more like an elder-tree in form and size. When stripped of its leaves the fig-tree looks like a mere tangle of ropes, but by this multitude of small branches a great many points are presented to the sunlight, and in summer these are all studded with figs and screened over with large leaves. The tree affords a pleasant shelter beside the house, and in this connection is mentioned in the Bible along with the trained vine (1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4; John 1:48).

(2) Fruit. — There may be said to be three fig seasons, (a) Early figs. These are few in number, and it is not every tree that has them. They are ripe a month before the regular crop. They are not really, better than the ordinary summer figs, being indeed rather inferior in flavour though large and juicy, but they are esteemed a delicacy because they are the first of the season and limited in quantity. They are often sent by the owner of the tree as a present to his friends. This appreciation and the fact that they fall off easily, are noticed in the Bible, and are made to point to moral resemblances (Hosea 9:10; Jeremiah 24:2; Nahum 3:12). (b) Ordinary summer figs. These are extensively used for food in August and September, and when dried on the flat house-tops are stored for winter use (1 Samuel 25:18, 1 Samuel 30:12). (c) Winter figs. These mature slowly, and remain along with the deep-green leaves on the tree until late in autumn, or even to the end of the year. They are large and fleshy, but inferior in flavour to those of the summer season. The quantity of them is comparatively small, though much larger, of course, than that of the early figs. While good figs are very good, bad figs can be very bad. They may become dry and shrivelled, gluey and insipid, or infected by small worms (Jeremiah 24:8).

(3) The fig-tree as a sign of the season. — The fig-tree comes into foliage later than the almond, apricot, and peach trees, and when its tender leaves are unsheathed, and expand and deepen in colour, it is a sign that summer days are at hand (Matthew 24:32; Mark 13:28). At the time of opening buds and blossoms the fig-tree sends out a peculiar odour, like sweetly-perfumed incense. It is this fragrance, like that of the sweet spices used in embalming, that seems to be indicated among the signs of approaching summer in Song of Solomon 2:13. There the literal meaning of the word translated “putteth forth,” and “ripeneth,” R.V, is that of perfuming and giving scent.

(4) The fig-tree that withered (Matthew 21:19; Mark 11:13). — We have all at times felt secret drawings of sympathy towards this tree as we have also at times towards Esau, Saul, Joab, and a few others. Now, in order to understand the case of the fig-tree, the first thing to attend to is the fig-tree’s law of growth and fruit-bearing. What is it? It is that leaves and fruit appear together and disappear together. As soon as the leaves begin to bud the figs begin to form. At the end of summer some of the figs may survive the leaves around them at the tips of the branches, but the presence of leaves is uniformly a guarantee of fruit. It is instructive to compare this tree and its fate with the other fig-tree mentioned in the parable (Luke 13:6-9). It also was unfruitful, and had been so for three years, but it was a case of simple failure under ordinary circumstances, at the ordinary season. It is made to teach a different lesson — a lesson of forbearance and encouraging trust. But with regard to the tree on the Mount of Olives, we are told that it was not yet the time of figs (Mark 9:13). This fact, which seems at first to excuse the tree, was what really led to its condemnation. If it was not the time of figs, it was not the time of foliage. The tree was in advance of its companions as to leaves, and by its own law of life, that is, the custom of having foliage and figs at the same time, such leadership in outward show should have been accompanied by a similar forwardness in fruit-bearing. But “ He found nothing thereon, but leaves only.” It was a vegetable Sanhedrim. It seemed to be possessed by the spirit that created the long robe and large phylactery-box. Sins against God were bad enough, but Pharisaism claimed to be for God. Pharisee and fig-tree were alike as to profession without practice.

It was the only thing that called forth the stern indignation of Christ. “Scribes, Pharisees “ — and this unnatural fig-tree — “ hypocrites! “Our Lord said, “ I am the Truth “ (John 14:6), and to love Him is to become like Him. Among the things that we are exhorted to think upon, the first place is given to “Whatsoever things are true” (Php 4:8).

5. Gardens. — The usual Oriental garden is a walled enclosure for fruit-trees as the vineyard is for vines. There is no thought of flowers, bordered walks, or green turf. The ground is made level, or arranged in a series of levels by low terrace walls, it is then laid out in narrow, shallow drills and irrigated. As each furrow gets its sufficiency of water it is closed at the end by the hoe and naked foot. This may be the reference to watering by the foot in Deuteronomy 11:10; or the contrast between Palestine and Egypt there indicated may point to some kind of treadmill wheel for lifting water from the river or canal that it might be distributed over the land. Near towns, and where the water-supply is abundant, there are gardens for vegetables which are cultivated in great abundance and variety. The usual garden trees are olive, fig, orange, lemon, citron, pomegranate, palm, almond, apricot, peach, banana, and occasionally apple and pear trees. Olive and fig trees are planted sufficiently apart to allow of wheat or barley being sown between them. Olive-trees are thus seen in the garden at the foot of “ the green hill,” where a rock-cut tomb is situated that is thought by many to have been the tomb of Christ (John 19:41). The almond-tree bursts into blossom in the short, dark, cold days of January and amid the blustering winds at the beginning of February. As its flowers are out before the leaves appear, its snowy array seems to emphasise the leafless desolation of the world around it (Ecclesiastes 12:5). The apple of Scripture is sometimes thought to be rather the citron or quince; the term may be a somewhat general one, but the translation given in the Bible has in its favour the fact that the same word in Arabic means an apple. The palm-tree towers aloft among the foliage of the sea- side plain, and rises picturesquely among the villages in the lower valleys. In Arabic poetry and compliment it is the standard simile with regard to stateliness and elegance (Psalms 92:2; Song of Solomon 7:7; Jeremiah 10:5). The walnut and locust-bean trees are often found outside of garden enclosures, either belonging to the owner of the ground or the common property of the village.

Locust-beans are ground like olives and the boiled syrup is mixed with figs for winter use. The walnut or nuttree is found in many localities, but prefers a mountainvalley with its roots beside the brook or spring (Psalms 1:3). It affords a dense and delightful shade, the leaves being refreshingly aromatic (Song of Solomon 6:11). Sycamore-trees are often met with singly by the roadside, of gigantic size, and with wide-spreading arms. Their figs are insipid in taste, about the size of a gooseberry, and growing thick upon small leafless twigs springing out from the trunk and principal branches. They are eaten only by the poorest of the people (Amos 7:14).

6. Gleaning. — The ancient rules about gleaning are not now observed so carefully as they used to be. On the small farms the harvest field is gleaned very thoroughly by the owners, but a small corner is sometimes left unreaped out of religious scruple. Recently a Scotch engineer took an American reaping-machine to the great wheat plain between the Lebanon ranges, to exhibit its powers to the assembled sheikhs and landowners. He astonished and delighted them, but was mobbed by the poor labourers and gleaning women, who saw that such clean quick work left nothing for them. In a grove of olive-trees belonging to several owners, and where no walls ever separate one person’s property from that of another, gleaning is allowed after the day or days publicly announced for the beating of the trees (Deuteronomy 24:20) and the gathering of the fruit. A similar permission generally holds good among the vines and fig-trees after the Feast of the Cross, which occurs towards the end of September. From the above it will be seen that with regard to pastoral and agricultural life in Bible times the people now living in Syria and Palestine need no commentary on such matters. Their traditional customs and surrounding conditions not only explain and confirm such references, but help to make the spiritual teaching in connection with them more interesting and impressive.