Bottle

Bottle, is the word employed by our translators for several terms in the original. The most proper of these appears to be' נאד: (nod, so called from being shaken in churning, see BUTTER), Gr. ἄσκος, a vessel made of skin, used for milk (Jg 4:19), or wine (Jos 9:4,14; 1Sa 16:20; Mt 9:17; Mr 2:22; Lu 5:37-38).- For preserving the latter free from insects, they were often suspended in the smoke (Ps 119:83). The term occurs in a figurative sense in Ps 56:8. חֵמֶת (che'meth, so called from its usual rancidity) was also a leathern or skin bottle for holding water (Ge 21:14-15,19) or strong drink (Ho 2:15). Earthen vessels for liquids are denoted by בִּקבּוּק (bakbuk', Jer 19:1-10; " cruse" of honey, 1Ki 14:3) and נֵבֶל or נֶבֶל (ne'bel, Isa 30:14; for wine, 1Sa 1:24; 1Sa 10:3; 1Sa 25:18; 2Sa 16:1; Jer 13:12; Jer 48:12; figuratively, Job 38:37; "pitchers," Lamentaions 4:2). The term employed in Job 32:19, is אוֹב (ob, strictly a water-skin), and evidently refers to a wine-skin as bursting by fermentation. The word חֵמָה (chemah'), rendered "bottle" of wine in Ho 7:5, signifies rather its heat or intoxicating strength, as in the margin and elsewhere. See CRUSE; see CUP; see FLAGON; see PITCHER; see BOWL, etc.

1. The first bottles were probably made of the skins of animals. Accordingly, in the fourth book of the. Iliad (1. 247), the attendants are represented as bearing wine for use in a bottle made of goat-skin (ἀσκῷἐν αἰγείῳ). In Herodotus also (ii, 121) a passage occurs by which it appears that it was customary among the ancient Egyptians to use bottles made of skins; and from the language employed by him it may be inferred that a bottle was formed by sewing up the skin, and leaving the projection of the leg and foot to serve as a cock; hence it was termed ποδεών. This aperture was closed with a plug or a string. In some instances every part was sewed up except the neck; the neck of the animal thus became the neck of the bottle. (See Wilkinson, Anc. Eg. i, 148-158.) The Greeks and Romans also were accustomed to use bottles made of skins, chiefly for wine (see Smith, Dict. of Class. Antig. s.v. Vinum). See SKIN-BOTTLE.