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Home Life in the Bible (Endnotes)

1. T. E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia,” wrote of one Arab leader: “When he was to march, his women rose before dawn, and footing noiselessly overhead on the taut tent cloth, unskewered the strips of it, while others beneath held and removed the poles till all was struck and divided into camel-loads, and loaded. Then they drove off, so that the Pasha awoke alone on his pallet in the open air where at night he had lain down in the rich inner compartment of his palace-tent. He would get up at leisure and drink coffee on his carpet: and afterwards the horses would be brought, and they would ride towards the new camping ground. …at sunset they would find the women waiting in the erected tent, as it had been on the evening before.” Lawrence, op. cit., Seven Pillars, p. 150. The strength of the woven goat hair is attested to by the fact that the women could walk on the top of the tent with no danger of falling through. Close

2. Knowing about the curtain that separates the women’s quarters from the rest of the tent helps us to explain the record of Jael in Judges 4. Jael, with typical Eastern hospitality, invited Sisera into the tent, yet she later killed him (Judg. 4:18-21). This has caused no small amount of debate among Western scholars, who brand Jael a liar and murderer. Knowledge of the Bedouin tent clears up the issue. The women of the family and the husband who owned the tent would be the only ones allowed in the women’s part of the tent. If a strange man were found inside the women’s quarters, she would be immediately accused of infidelity and stoned to death. Barbara Bowen writes: “Sisera wanted a good hiding place, and of course, no place could be safer than the woman’s part of the tent, for no Israelite would intrude there. Sisera, no doubt, pushed his way into the woman’s section of the tent against Jael’s wishes, for entering here was the greatest insult and exposed her to dishonor and also death. She is placed in an exceedingly hard position. If she ordered him to leave, he would likely kill her to save his own life, while to allow him to stay would have exposed her to the anger of her husband, who would at once condemn her as unfaithful, and stone her to death as the common law provided. She decided she must protect herself, and when he fell asleep, she pinned him to the ground with tent pins. She knew well how to use the tent pins, for the women take down and put up the tents.” Barbara Bowen, Strange Scriptures that Perplex the Western Mind (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, 1951), pp.102 and 103. Close

3. The original cry in 2 Samuel 20:1, 1 Kings 12:16, and 2 Chronicles 10:16 was not “To your tents, O Israel” but “To your gods, O Israel.” It was a cry raised in defiance of David and his dynasty (and, sadly, to the true God whose Temple stood in Jerusalem). The term “gods” was changed to “tents” by copyists because the original cry offended them. E. W. Bullinger, Companion Bible, (reprinted; Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1974), note on 2 Samuel 20:1, and Mark Graeser, John Lynn, and John Schoenheit, One God & One Lord: Reconsidering the Cornerstone of the Christian Faith (Christian Educational Services, Indianapolis, IN, 2003), p. 327. Close

4. There has been much debate over whether the roof was flat or peaked, but the ancients did not know of a flat roofed tent, and the wording “…tent over the tabernacle…” (Exod. 36:14, 40:19) is good evidence that it had a peaked roof. Close

5. In biblical times cement was not used, and the references to “grass” on the roofs in the biblical text shows us that they were generally left as just packed dirt. Close

6. This was not as much the case in biblical times as in Arab culture. The reason God commanded the battlement, or small wall, around the roof was that it was a place people commonly went. The breeze and openness of the roof were refreshing. Samuel and Saul met on the roof (1 Sam. 9:25), and Peter went to the roof to pray (Acts 10:9). In times of trouble people got on their roof to hear the news, which was shouted from rooftop to rooftop (Isa. 22:1; Matt. 10:27). Close

7. The need of Eastern people for companionship is the source of some very amusing incidents that are told by Westerners such as Burton, Lawrence, and others who lived in the Middle East. T. E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia,” tells of his efforts to stop Turkish trains. He and the Arabs he commanded would blow up a train and then attack it. On one occasion the train was dynamited, but the crew got out, fixed it, and drove away, to the astonishment of Lawrence. He later found out that the two Arabs he had posted with the machine gun had gotten lonely and gone back to camp. Lawrence, op. cit., Seven Pillars, pp. 202-203. Close

8. In biblical times, if the house was built of mud brick, an inside wall of plain mud brick was common, and if the house was made of stone then that would also be the inside wall. It was always a possibility that a snake or other creature would make a home in between the rocks or bricks of the wall: “As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him” (Amos 5:19). Close

9. The glass candelabra, mirror, etc., were missing from the room in biblical times, but the point is the same: men of the East want to make an impression on their invited guests. Close