1^8 Lutz, Viticulture and Brewing. 



'0 



(Smend, Die Weiskeit des Jesus Sirack, Berlin, I906). In view 

 of conditions in Arabia, we may judge that these singing-girls 

 in Palestine constituted a large, if not the largest, class of 

 prostitutes. Here as well as in Arabia she was a foreigner, 

 a niT, which means both the foreign woman and the harlot 

 (Prov. 2, 16; 5, 3; 5, 20; 7, 5; 22, 14; 23, 27). The Palestinian 

 tavern (ll^n rr^a) was distinguished by a sign, the is.'^'i, Arabia 

 <^^* (see below p. 149). Correct singing at drinking-bouts^ is 

 likened to a seal-stone of carbuncle on a golden neck-chain 

 and to a seal-stone of emerald, Sir. 35, 5, 6: 



The custom of the Greeks and Romans, to wreath oneself at 

 banquets, had been introduced also by the Jews (Wisd. 2, 8; cf. 

 Is. 28, 1 5). Johns 2 has pointed out that there exists a striking 

 parallel between the Code of Hammurabi and Lev. 21, 9, 

 Death by burning is decreed to the daughter of a priest who 

 is unchaste. The Code, we have seen above, mentions the 

 horrible punishment only twice, but so does Hebrew legisla 

 tion, and in the same cases. Josephus directly states that in 

 the case of the priest's daughter it is not unchastity alone 

 that brought upon her this fearful punishment of burning, 

 but this punishment was imposed upon her in case that she 

 at the same time opens a tavern. The Talmud seems to in- 

 dicate that the rabbis also connected the crime of the priest's 

 daughter with the tavern, for they ask: Shall not a priestess or 

 priest's daughter be treated better than a tavern-keeper? 

 There appears to have remained thus in Talmudic time 

 a recollection that in certain circumstances the law had pre- 

 scribed the death-penalty by burning for innkeepers. 



Wine was sold at the market. An inspector (pT ni in the 

 inscriptions; NH piicn b3?a, more often cl'Q'^Dil^X and DliaTiax, 

 i. e., dyopavopoq) who controlled the market-prices and weights 

 and examined the provisions and the grain, tasted (DSJ'ia) the 



i) The name of Josiah is likened to a song at a wine drinking-bout 

 (Sir. 49, i). 



2) Johns, C. H. W. , The Relations between the Laivs of Babylenia and 

 the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples, The Schweich Lectures, 19 12. 



