Succoth, meaning “booths.” (Gen. 33:17) Booths were used by armies in the field, especially by the officers.—1 Ki. 20:12, 16.

A booth or hut was often built in a vineyard or in the center of a field so that the watchman could have shelter from the hot sun as he kept guard against thieves or animals. (Isa. 1:8) There the harvesters enjoyed their noonday meals in the shade and saved time otherwise lost by going in from the field. Thickly thatched leaves kept the rain off those beneath. (Isa. 4:6) Jonah made himself such a booth so that it might protect him from the sun as he waited to see what would become of Nineveh, against which he had prophesied.—Jonah 4:5.

FIGURATIVE USES

Isaiah illustrates the desolated condition of Judah and Jerusalem in Jehovah’s eyes, likening it to a mere hut, in contrast to a populous, built-up city. (Isa. 1:8) Jehovah pictures himself as dwelling in a booth of clouds when he temporarily descends from heaven to earth. There majestic omnipotence conceals itself, and from there come the crashings of thunder. (Ps. 18:9, 11; 2 Sam. 22:10, 12; Job 36:29) David likens the place of concealment for those trusting in Jehovah to Jehovah’s “booth.”—Ps. 31:20.

Amos refers to the rebuilding of the “booth of David that is fallen.” (Amos 9:11) David was promised by Jehovah that David’s kingdom would be steadfast to time indefinite. Regarding the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah and its last king Zedekiah of the line of David, Ezekiel was inspired to prophesy: “A ruin, a ruin, a ruin I shall make it. As for this also, it will certainly become no one’s until he comes who has the legal right, and I must give it to him.” (Ezek. 21:27) From this time on no king of the line of David occupied “Jehovah’s throne” in Jerusalem. But Peter on the day of Pentecost, 33 C.E., pointed out that Jesus Christ was of David’s line and the one of whom God really spoke as being the permanent King. Peter informed the Jews gathered there at Jerusalem that, in their time, Jehovah had raised Jesus up and made him both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:29-36) Later, the disciple James applied Amos’ prophecy as undergoing fulfillment in the gathering of disciples of Christ (Kingdom heirs) from both the Jews and the Gentile nations.—Acts 15:14-18; Rom. 8:17.

BORASHAN

(Borʹa·shan) [well of smoke].

One of the places that David and his men frequented during his time as a fugitive. (1 Sam. 30:30, 31) Some authorities consider it to be the same as Ashan (Josh. 19:7), a Simeonite enclave city in the southern part of Judah’s territory, a short distance NW of Beer-sheba.—See ASHAN.

BOSOM POSITION

(Bosom, AV).

In a parable Jesus spoke of a poor beggar named Lazarus who was carried at his death to the “bosom position of Abraham,” and John refers to Jesus as being in the “bosom position with the Father.” (Luke 16:22, 23; John 1:18) The expression “bosom position” alludes to one’s reclining in front of another person on the same couch at a meal.

The Jews adopted this custom of reclining at meals from the Romans, who had gotten it, in turn, from Carthage after the Punic wars. The guests reclined on their left side with a pillow supporting their left elbow, leaving the right arm free. Usually three persons occupied each couch, but there could be as many as five. The head of each one would be on or near the breast or bosom, as it were, of the person behind him. The person with no one at his back was considered in the highest position and the one next to him in the second place of honor. In view of the nearness of the guests to one another, it was the custom that friend be placed next to friend, which made it rather easy to engage in confidential conversation if desired. To be in such a “bosom position” of another at a banquet was indeed to occupy a special place of favor with that one. So the apostle John, whom Jesus dearly loved, “was reclining in front of Jesus’ bosom,” and in such a position he “leaned back upon the breast of Jesus” and privately asked him a question at the celebration of the last Passover.--John 13:23, 25; 21:20.

For these reasons John, in describing the very special position of favor enjoyed by Jesus, said that he was in the “bosom position” of his Father Jehovah. Likewise, in Jesus’ illustration, Lazarus was carried to the “bosom position” of Abraham, denoting that this beggar finally came into a position of special favor with one who was his superior.—See MEAL.

BOTTLE

A container used to hold such things as water, oil, milk, wine, butter and cheese. Bottles of ancient times varied greatly in size and shape, some of them being leather bags and others narrow-necked containers with stoppers. The Egyptians had ornamented vases that served as bottles and these were made out of alabaster, bone, bronze, glass, gold, ivory, porcelain, silver or stone. Glass bottles were in use in ancient Assyria, and earthenware bottles were common in various Biblical lands of antiquity. However, especially did the ancients use skin bottles.

The common way to make a skin bottle was to kill an animal, cut off its head and feet, and then carefully draw it out of the hide in such a way that it was unnecessary to cut open the creature’s belly. The skin would be tanned and then all openings but one would be sewed up. The neck, or perhaps one of the projections for the legs, would be left unsewn, and this served as the opening, which could be closed with a plug or a string. The hides of sheep, goats and sometimes of oxen, were used for this purpose, and, in some instances, the hair was left on the skins used to hold milk, butter, cheese and water. However, a more thorough tanning process was required when the skin bottles were to be used for oil and wine. Even in more recent times many skin bottles have been made similarly in the Middle East. When skin water bottles are not tanned, they impart an unpleasant taste to the water kept in them.

The Gibeonites told Joshua: “These are the wine skin-bottles that we filled new, and, look! they have burst.” (Josh. 9:13) Such a thing could happen in time because of pressure built up due to active fermentation of the wine. Suffering Job said: “Look! My belly is like wine that has no vent; like new skin bottles it wants to burst open.” (Job 32:19) Generally, however, new wineskins would be able to withstand the internal pressure developed due to fermentation of the wine. Yet, old wineskins would in time become hard and lose their elasticity, and they were then likely to burst. Hence, Jesus Christ fittingly said: “Neither do people put new wine into old wineskins; but if they do, then the wineskins burst and the wine spills out and the wineskins are ruined. But people 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.

[Picture on page 253]

Skin bottle

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.

BOUNDARY

The Hebrew word g^evulʹ 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., g^evulʹ] of the sons of Reuben came to be the Jordan; and this as a territory [g^evulʹ] 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