Family Life: The Husband and Wife ll

   688. Several cities mentioned in the Old Testament were built above underground springs. Megiddo and Hazor were two of these cities. In Hazor a woman would walk through the streets to a deep shaft. Then she descended thirty feet on five flights of stairs to the water tunnel, along which she proceeded to the water level to fill her large water jug. She needed considerable strength to climb back out of the watershaft with a heavy water jug. Gathering water was also time for the women to socialize.

   689. The hum of the handmill grinding grain would be one of the first sounds heard in the early morning of an Israelite village. For those who live in the Holy Lands, this sound is associated with home, comfort, and plenty. This task belonged to the women and began in the early morning because it would often take half the day to finish. When Jeremiah foretold judgment upon Israel for her sins, he said that God would "banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp" (Jer. 25:10, emphasis added).

   690. Making clothes for the family from the wool of their flocks was one of the responsibilities of Jewish women. Another task was the washing of clothing. The ancient women of Israel washed their clothes by going to nearby sources of water such as streams, pools, or watering troughs. Like Arab women, they dipped the clothes in and out of the water and then placed them on flat stones to beat them with a club. They carried the water in goatskins and had a vessel for rinsing.

   691. Collecting water from a well or spring is another household task of the women. The same practice is used today in many places in the East just as it was done in Genesis: "it was toward evening, the time the women go out to draw water" (24:11). It is customary for Syrian women to carry the pitcher of water on their shoulders, although sometimes it is carried on their hip. Most Arabs of Palestine carry it on their heads. Scripture says that Rebekah carried her pitcher on her shoulder (Gen. 24:15).

   692. "A man carrying a jug of water..." Carrying water was universally done by women. So when Jesus instructed two of His disciples, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him" (Mark 14:13), it was an easy way of identifying the man. However, when larger supplies of water were needed, men used large skins of sheep or goats for carrying it.

   693. The hard leather portable bucket with a rope is brought to the well in addition to the pitcher in order to let down the bucket to the level of the water. The Samaritan woman who Jesus met at Jacob's well had brought all this with her, but Jesus did not have anything with Him. This is why she said to Him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep" (John 4:11 NRSV).