280 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



35. The vintage was a season of great mirth. Of the juice of the 

 squeezed grapes were formed wine and vinegar. 



The wines of Canaan, being very heady, were generally mixed 

 with water for common use, as among the Italians ; and they some- 

 times scented them with frankincense, myrrh, calamus and other 

 spices (Prov. ix. 2, 5; Cant. viii. 2); they also scented them with 

 pomegranates, or made wine of their juice, as we do of the juice of 

 currants, gooseberries, &c. fermented with sugar. Wine is best 

 when old, and on the lees, the dregs having sunk to the bottom, Isa. 

 xxv. 6. Sweet wine is that which is made from th grapes fully 

 ripe, Isa. xlix. 26. The Israelites had two kinds of vinegar ; the one 

 was a weak wine, which was used for their common drink in the 

 harvest field (Ruthii. 14), as the Spaniards and Italians still do; 

 and it was probably of this that Solomon was to furnish twenty 

 thousand baths to Hiram, for his servants, the hewers that cut tim- 

 ber in Lebanon, 2 Chron. ii. 10. The other had a sharp acid taste, 

 li^e ours ; and thence Solomon hints, that a sluggard hurts and vexes 

 such as employ him in business ; as vinegar is disagreeable to the 

 teeth, and smoke to the eyes (Prov. x. 26) ; and as vinegar poured 

 upon nitre spoils its virtue, so he that singeth songs to a heavy heart, 

 does but add to his .grief, chap. xxv. 20. The poor were allowed 

 to glean grapes, as well as corn, and other articles (Lev. xix. 10. 

 Deut. xxiv. 21. Isa. iii. 14 ; chap. xvii. 6 ; xxvi. 13; Micah vii. 1 ) ; and 

 we learn that the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim was better than 

 the vintage of Abiezer; Judg. viii. 2. 



The vessels in which the vine was kept, were probably, for the 

 most part, bottles, which were usually made of leather, or goat- 

 skins, firmly sewed and pitched together. The Arabs pull the skin 

 off goats in the same manner tha$ we do from rabbits, and sew up 

 the places where the legs and tail were cut off, leaving one for the 

 neck of the bottle, to pour from ; and in such bags they put up and 

 carry, not only their liquors, but dry things which are not apt to be 

 broken ; by which means they are well preserved from wet, dust, or 

 insects. These would in lime crack and wear out. Hence, when 

 the Gibeonites came to Joshua, pretending that they came from a 

 far country, amongst other things they brought wine bottles, old and 

 rent, and bound up where they had leaked, Josh. ix. 4, 13. Thus, 

 too, it was not expedient to put new wine into old bottles, because 

 the fermentation of it would break or crack the bottles. Matt. ix. 17. 

 And thus David complains, that he had become like a bottle in the 

 smoko ; that is, a bottle dried, and cracked, and worn out, and un- 

 fit for service, Psal. cxix. 83. These bottles were probably of va- 

 rious size's, and sometimes very large ; for when Abigail went to 

 meet David and his 400 men, and took a present to pacify and sup- 

 ply him, 200 loaves and five sheep ready dressed, &c., she took on- 

 ly two bottles of wine (I Sam. xxv. 18); a very disproportionate 

 quantity, unless the bottles were large. But the Israelites had bot- 

 tles likewise made by the potters. See Isa. xxx. 14, marg. Jer. xix. 

 1, 10 ; ch. xlviii. 12. We hear also of vessels called barrels. That 



