Shalom,
Scripture references are from,
the SET (Stone Edition Tanach) or the CJB (Complete Jewish Bible) for the OT
and the PNT (Power New Testament) for the NT unless otherwise specified.
Psa 119:83 For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; [yet] do I not forget thy statutes.
In the midst of the longest Psalm we find this verse.
Have you really ever questioned what David was saying about himself here?
Psalm 119 is many things but one thing that it is, is an over-view of David's life. In providing this he presents many other things that are often applied to The CHRIST but what is he saying here?
Let's step back in time a bit first so that we can get a grasp of this!
Before I go too far with this let me make a comment about wine and water. Most scientist now agree that the wine in the day of Y'SHUA was about 1% alcohol. That is not a typographical error, I said 1%. That is about the same as your average grocery store non-alcoholic grape juice. The preserving process used to make grape juice allows for just a bit of fermenting but not enough that the FDA classifies it as "alcoholic." That however, was the average wine of the day! Average because most people did not have cellars in which to store wine and allow it to ferment. They did not make glass bottles either.
Water was the drink of the day!
We have often heard that water was not very clean back then but I beg to differ. Every city was built upon a spring. A clean water source. They may have also been built "near" a lake, river or sea but that was not for a supply of drinking water but for other purposes such as sanitation, defense or commerce.
When a shepherd would make a "bottle", he did not make it out of plastic or glass. He made it out of the skin of an animal, a spiritually clean animal. Under normal circumstances a sheep was the perfect fit for this. He would take an average to slightly undersized animal and kill it. In the process he would circumcise the legs just above the ankles and then make a cut that united these circumcisional cuts with as few other cuts as possible. He would also circumcise the neck as far forward as possible but this would not be connected to the other cuts. This skin would then be cleaned to remove all bacteria, hair and possible bugs in a liquid compound. Once cleaned the connected cuts would then be sewn together and a belt would be tied between the two front and the two rear legs, thus connecting the four via the one belt. A stopper would be placed in the neck area and this then was a "bottle." A bottle that could be hung by the belt over the head and possibly one arm of the shepherd.
In the desert it gets hot - duh! Also, we know that it doesn't rain all that much, therefore there are generally not many clouds in the sky. Clouds aid the earth in retaining heat. Thus without the clouds, as night falls the desert losses all of it's daytime heat and it simply gets cold! It is not uncommon to have a 70-85 degree swing in temperatures from daytime to night. Because of this, when traveling one would put up their tents at night and more often than not they would build a fire inside the tent. The tent generally was built with a center pole. At the top of this pole is where all the heat and smoke would rise to and then recirculate down the outstretched tent skin until the smoke could escape out the door. Water is also a very important commodity to possess while traveling in the desert and therefore these "bottles" were cared for. Generally in order to keep them where they could be seen and not sat upon these were hung on the center pole. As noted this is where the smoke rises to and thus the connection to our Psalm 119 where David says...
Psa 119:83 For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; [yet] do I not forget thy statutes.
Armed with just this basic knowledge of the tent and the bottle there still seems to be something lacking in the connection David is trying to make. The picture he is attempting to draw still seems to be incomplete, don't you think?
Remember that along with the smoke rises the heat. Have you ever seen meat that has been smoked over heat for a very long time? The "Bottle" is an animal skin or basically a meat-like substance so essentially it reacts just like meat smoked over heat. It dries until it becomes 'Beef Jerky', basically! These skins that are made into "bottles" are not all that thick but even a thick one that has become jerky is of little to no use as a 'bottle'. In the dried state if a liquid is poured inside of it, the skin will start to stretch as the weight of the liquids starts to pull upon it. If they happen to be adding wine to the 'bottle' then the slight fermenting state will stretch it through expansion. In either case, the results are the same. The dried skin will crack and leak or crack and then burst. Armed with this little bit of knowledge you can now appreciate...
Mat 9:17. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins: otherwise the wine skins burst and the wine spills out and the wine skins are lost: but they put new wine into new wine skins, and both are preserved.
Because of the length of this message it will have to be posted in two parts. Sorry it's not my rule. This concludes part one and part two is in the next post.
Scripture references are from,
the SET (Stone Edition Tanach) or the CJB (Complete Jewish Bible) for the OT
and the PNT (Power New Testament) for the NT unless otherwise specified.
Psa 119:83 For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; [yet] do I not forget thy statutes.
In the midst of the longest Psalm we find this verse.
Have you really ever questioned what David was saying about himself here?
Psalm 119 is many things but one thing that it is, is an over-view of David's life. In providing this he presents many other things that are often applied to The CHRIST but what is he saying here?
Let's step back in time a bit first so that we can get a grasp of this!
Before I go too far with this let me make a comment about wine and water. Most scientist now agree that the wine in the day of Y'SHUA was about 1% alcohol. That is not a typographical error, I said 1%. That is about the same as your average grocery store non-alcoholic grape juice. The preserving process used to make grape juice allows for just a bit of fermenting but not enough that the FDA classifies it as "alcoholic." That however, was the average wine of the day! Average because most people did not have cellars in which to store wine and allow it to ferment. They did not make glass bottles either.
Water was the drink of the day!
We have often heard that water was not very clean back then but I beg to differ. Every city was built upon a spring. A clean water source. They may have also been built "near" a lake, river or sea but that was not for a supply of drinking water but for other purposes such as sanitation, defense or commerce.
When a shepherd would make a "bottle", he did not make it out of plastic or glass. He made it out of the skin of an animal, a spiritually clean animal. Under normal circumstances a sheep was the perfect fit for this. He would take an average to slightly undersized animal and kill it. In the process he would circumcise the legs just above the ankles and then make a cut that united these circumcisional cuts with as few other cuts as possible. He would also circumcise the neck as far forward as possible but this would not be connected to the other cuts. This skin would then be cleaned to remove all bacteria, hair and possible bugs in a liquid compound. Once cleaned the connected cuts would then be sewn together and a belt would be tied between the two front and the two rear legs, thus connecting the four via the one belt. A stopper would be placed in the neck area and this then was a "bottle." A bottle that could be hung by the belt over the head and possibly one arm of the shepherd.
In the desert it gets hot - duh! Also, we know that it doesn't rain all that much, therefore there are generally not many clouds in the sky. Clouds aid the earth in retaining heat. Thus without the clouds, as night falls the desert losses all of it's daytime heat and it simply gets cold! It is not uncommon to have a 70-85 degree swing in temperatures from daytime to night. Because of this, when traveling one would put up their tents at night and more often than not they would build a fire inside the tent. The tent generally was built with a center pole. At the top of this pole is where all the heat and smoke would rise to and then recirculate down the outstretched tent skin until the smoke could escape out the door. Water is also a very important commodity to possess while traveling in the desert and therefore these "bottles" were cared for. Generally in order to keep them where they could be seen and not sat upon these were hung on the center pole. As noted this is where the smoke rises to and thus the connection to our Psalm 119 where David says...
Psa 119:83 For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; [yet] do I not forget thy statutes.
Armed with just this basic knowledge of the tent and the bottle there still seems to be something lacking in the connection David is trying to make. The picture he is attempting to draw still seems to be incomplete, don't you think?
Remember that along with the smoke rises the heat. Have you ever seen meat that has been smoked over heat for a very long time? The "Bottle" is an animal skin or basically a meat-like substance so essentially it reacts just like meat smoked over heat. It dries until it becomes 'Beef Jerky', basically! These skins that are made into "bottles" are not all that thick but even a thick one that has become jerky is of little to no use as a 'bottle'. In the dried state if a liquid is poured inside of it, the skin will start to stretch as the weight of the liquids starts to pull upon it. If they happen to be adding wine to the 'bottle' then the slight fermenting state will stretch it through expansion. In either case, the results are the same. The dried skin will crack and leak or crack and then burst. Armed with this little bit of knowledge you can now appreciate...
Mat 9:17. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins: otherwise the wine skins burst and the wine spills out and the wine skins are lost: but they put new wine into new wine skins, and both are preserved.
Because of the length of this message it will have to be posted in two parts. Sorry it's not my rule. This concludes part one and part two is in the next post.
