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BottleAid to Bible Understanding
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put new wine into new wineskins, and both things are preserved.”—Matt. 9:17.
David, a fugitive beleaguered by foes, referred to the skin bottle figuratively. Requesting God, in whom he placed his trust, not to forget his tears, David said: “Do put my tears in your skin bottle.” (Ps. 56:8) It is said that skins filled with wine were sometimes hung where they could be smoked so as to protect them from insects or to impart quickly certain desired properties to the wine. On the other hand, when not in use, skin bottles might be hung in a room without a chimney and thus become darkened by smoke from fires built there. These wineskins would soon lose their elasticity and shrivel up. Perhaps with this in mind, the psalmist who was beset with trials said: “For I have become like a skin bottle in the smoke.”—Ps. 119:83; see POTTER; VESSELS.
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Bottle-Gourd PlantAid to Bible Understanding
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BOTTLE-GOURD PLANT
[Heb., qi·qa·yohnʹ].
The Hebrew term represents the plant that Jehovah caused to grow miraculously overnight to provide shade for the prophet Jonah as he sat in a booth awaiting the results of his prophesying against Nineveh. The plant brought great relief to Jonah until Jehovah caused a worm to attack it, resulting in its withering away, thereby leaving the prophet exposed to the beating rays of the sun.—Jonah 4:5-11.
Two plants are commonly suggested as possible translations of the Hebrew qi·qa·yohnʹ. Some Bible translations (RS, mar; JB) prefer the “castor-oil plant” (Ricinus communis), a perennial plant of rapid growth attaining a height of ten feet (3 meters) or more, and having large leaves. This preference is based on a conjectural association of the Hebrew term with the Graeco-Egyptian name for the castor-oil plant, kiki. Other scholars and translators suggest the “gourd” (AT) or “bottle-gourd plant” (NW; see Brown, Driver and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, page 884), a broad-leafed plant classified botanically as Cucurbita lagenaria. The Septuagint and Peshitta Versions give some support to this translation. The bottle-gourd plant not only is fast growing but also has the characteristic of withering very quickly when damaged. Those favoring an identification with the gourd plant consider the context in the book of Jonah to indicate a vinelike plant that ‘came up over’ the booth that Jonah had constructed, rather than a treelike plant, such as the castor-oil plant. The bottle gourd is often planted by such booths in Near Eastern countries. However, there is an absence of any detailed description of the plant in the Biblical account.
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BoundaryAid to Bible Understanding
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BOUNDARY
The Hebrew word gevulʹ is from a root meaning originally to ‘twist or wind as a cord,’ and, according to etymologists, came to mean “boundary,” or, that “determined by measuring cord.” It may also mean the territory or land enclosed within a border or boundary. Thus, Joshua 13:23 states: “And the boundary [Heb., gevulʹ] of the sons of Reuben came to be the Jordan; and this as a territory [gevulʹ] was the inheritance.”
THE “SET LIMITS” OF MEN’S DWELLING
Paul told his Athenian listeners that God “decreed the appointed seasons and the set limits [Gr., ho·ro·the·siʹas, literally, a ‘setting of the bounds’] of the dwelling of men.” (Acts 17:26) While some commentators would, on the basis of this statement, make God responsible for all the political borders and frontiers in the past and present, it is evident that Paul was speaking in Biblical terms, and had in mind God’s dealings as recorded there.
Prior to the global flood, God had expelled the first human pair from the garden of Eden, obliging them to live outside of it (Gen. 3:23, 24), had banished Cain from the immediate “ground” from which Abel’s blood was “crying out” (Gen. 4:10, 11), and later had set a limit of “a hundred and twenty years” (Gen. 6:3) in which the pre-Flood population could continue dwelling upon the earth before the destruction of the vast majority of them. (Gen. 6:13) He decreed that the Flood survivors should “fill the earth” and when an attempt was made to hold back from spreading abroad in the earth, God overruled such action and compelled men to carry out that decree.—Gen. 9:1, 19; 11:1-9.
Centuries later, to Abraham and his seed God promised a certain land with definitely stated boundaries. (Gen. 15:18-21; Ex. 23:31) God permitted the resident Canaanites to continue dwelling in that Promised Land for a foretold period of “four hundred years” more before enforcing an eviction decree when the “error of the Amorites” came to completion. (Gen. 15:13-16) On the other hand, Jehovah God also decreed that the Israelites should not encroach on the boundaries of the nations of Edom, Moab and Ammon, anciently descended from relatives of the Israelites’ forefathers. (Deut. 2:4, 5, 18, 19) In the light of these facts, the sense of Paul’s statement, quoted earlier, is well expressed in Moses’ song at Deuteronomy 32:8: “When the Most High gave the nations an inheritance, when he parted the sons of Adam from one another, he proceeded to fix the boundary of the peoples with regard for the number of the sons of Israel.”
It was on the basis of Jehovah’s sovereign right to decree the set limits of men’s dwellings that Judge Jephthah later defended Israel’s right to its established boundaries. (Judg. 11:12-15, 23-27) However, due to Israel’s failure to adhere devotedly to God’s commands, Jehovah allowed some of the enemy peoples to remain within Israel’s borders (Num. 33:55; Judg. 2:20-23), and it was not until King David’s reign, some four centuries from the nation’s entry into Canaan, that Israel gained dominion over all the territory within the promised boundaries.—2 Sam. 8:1-15.
Eventually, in accord with his earlier warning pronouncement, Jehovah allowed the pagan nations to overrun the boundaries of the Promised Land and lead Israel into exile, as a punishment upon an apostate people. (Deut. 28:36, 37, 49-53; Jer. 25:8-11) By his prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, God foretold the rise and fall of the world powers from Babylon forward and the order of their appearance. (Isa. 13:1–14:4; 44:28–45:5; Jer. 25:12-29; Ezek. 21:18-27; Dan. chaps. 2, 7, 8, and 11:1–12:4) Though tolerating the existence and domination of the earth by the political nations for an ‘appointed season,’ Jehovah also foretold their ultimate destruction and the wiping out of the boundaries of their political dominion, this by the kingdom of the Messiah.—Dan. 2:44; compare Revelation 11:17, 18; 19:11-16.
ISRAEL’S TRIBAL BOUNDARIES
At the time of Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land, the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh had been granted the right to receive their inheritance of land “from the side of the Jordan toward the sunrising.” (Num. 32:1-5, 19, 33-42; 34:14, 15; Josh. 13:8-13, 15-32) Following six years of warfare in subduing the Canaanites, the time came for determining the tribal boundaries W of the Jordan for the other nine tribes and the remaining half tribe of Manasseh. Joshua, Eleazar the priest and one chieftain out of each tribe were appointed by Jehovah to serve as a ‘land committee’ overseeing the distribution. (Num. 34:13-29; Josh. 14:1) The procedure followed was according to God’s earlier command to Moses: “According to the great number you should increase one’s inheritance, and according to the fewness you should reduce one’s inheritance. Each one’s inheritance should be given in proportion to his registered ones. Only by the lot should the land be apportioned.”—Num. 26:52-56; 33:53, 54.
It thus appears that the distribution of the land among the tribes was governed by two factors: the
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