Games

Games are so natural to man, especially in the period of childhood, that no nation has been or can be entirely without them.

I. Accordingly, a few traces are found in the early Hebrew history of at least private and childish diversions. The heat of the climate in Syria would indispose the mature to more bodily exertion than the duties of life imposed, while the gravity which is characteristic of the Oriental character might seem compromised by anything so light as sports. Dignified ease, therefore, corresponds with the idea which we form of Oriental recreation. The father of the family sits at the door of his tent, or reclines on the house-top, or appears at the city gate, and there tranquilly enjoys repose, broken by conversation, under the light and amid the warmth of the bright and breezy heavens, in the cool of the retiring day, or before the sun has assumed his burning ardors (De 16:14; La 5:14). Of the three classes into which games may be arranged, juvenile, manly, and public, the first two alone belong to the Hebrew life; the latter, as noticed in the Bible, being either foreign introductions into Palestine, or the customs of other countries.

1. With regard to juvenile games, the notices are very few. It must not, however, be inferred from this that the Hebrew children were without the amusements adapted to their age. The toys and sports of childhood claim a remote antiquity; and if the children of the ancient Egyptians had their dolls of ingenious construction, and played at ball (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt. abridgm. 1:197), and if the children of the Romans amused themselves much as those of the present day (Horace, 2 Sat. 3:247), we may imagine the Hebrew children doing the same, as they played in the streets of Jerusalem (Zec 8:5; comp. Jer 30:19). The only recorded sports, however, are keeping tame birds (Job 41:5; compare Catull. 2, 1), and imitating the proceedings of marriages or funeral (Mt 11:16). Commenting on Zec 12:3, Jerome mentions an amusement of the young which is seen practiced in more than one part of the north of England. "It is customary," he says, "in the cities of Palestine, and has been so from ancient times, to place up and down large stones to serve for exercise for the young, who, according in each case to their degree of strength, lift these stones, some as high as their knees, others to their middle, others above their heads, the hands being: kept horizontal and joined under the stone. A similar mode of exercise prevailed in ancient Egypt (Wilkinson, 1:207). See CHILDREN.