Botch CpHl£5, shechin', elsewhere "boil"), a name applied (Deut. xxviii, 27, 35) to the Egyptian plague of cutaneous inflammatory eruptions (Exod. ix,9 sq.), a disease at that time preternaturally induced, hut appar- ently also endemic in that country from Sept. to l>ec, according to some travellers, and breaking out in pus- tules that sometimes prove fatal in a few days (Gran- ger, Voyage de VEgypte, p. 22). Others (comp. Rosen- miiller, Alterthumsk. ii, 222 sq.) understand a kind of eruptive fever engendered by the effluvia after the in- undation of the Nile ; but this disease would hardly attack cattle. Jahn (Archiiol. I, ii, 384) thinks it was the black leprosy or melandria. See Boil.
Botnim. See Nut.
Botrys (Borpuc ; in Or. this word means a bunch of grapes; Roarpve in Theophan. Chorogr. p. 193; comp. Pomp. Mela, i, 12, 3), a town of the Phoenician coast, twelve Roman miles north of Byblus (Tab. Petit."), and a fortress of the robber tribes of Mount Libanus (Strabo, xvi, p. 755), founded by Ethbaal, king of Tyre (Menander in Josephus, Ant. viii, 13, 2). It was taken, with other cities, by Antiochus the Great in his Phoenician campaign (Polyb. v, 68). It is still ex- tant tinder the name Batrun, a small town, with a port and 300 or 400 houses, chiefly of Maronites (Chesney, Evphrat. Exped. i, 454).
Eottle is the word employed by our translators for several terms in the original. The most proper of these appears to be IN: (nod, so called from being shaken in churning [see Putter]), Gr. (Woe, a ves- sel made of skin, used fur milk (Judg. iv, 19), or wine (Josh, ix, I. 11; 1 Sam. xvi, 20; Matt, ix, 17; Mark ii, 22 : Luke v. 37, 38). For preserving the latter free from insects, they were often suspended in the smoke ( Psa. cxix, 83). The term occurs in a figurative sense in Psa. hi, 8. r-cn (che'meth, so called from its usu- al rancidity) was also a leathern or skin bottle for holding water (Gen. xxi, 14, 15, 19) or strong drink ( Bos. ii, 16). Eartlien vessels for liquids are denoted by P"^^? (bakbuk', .ler. xix, 1-10; " cruse" of honey, 1 Kings xiv, 8) and fen? or feaj. (ne'bd, Isa. xxx, 14; for wine, 1 Sam. i, 24 ; x, 3; xxv, 18; 2 Sam. xvi, 1 ; ■ler. xiii, 12; xlviii.12; figuratively, Job xxxviii, 37 ; "pitchers," Lam. iv, 2). The term employed in Job
xxxii, 19, is SIX (ob, strictly a water-skin), and evi- dently refers to a wine-skin as bursting by fermenta- tion. The word fTCn (chemah'), rendered "bottle" of wine in Hos. vii, 5, signifies rather its heat or in- toxicating strength, as in the margin and elsewhere. See Cruse; Cup; Flagon; Pitcher; 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 bear- ing wine for use in a bottle made of goat-skin (avKtp iv aiyii'ij). In Herodotus also (ii, 121) a passage oc- curs by which it appears that it was customary among the ancient Egyptians to use bottles made of skins ; and from the language employed bj' him it may be in- ferred 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 TcoStwv. This aperture was closed with a plug or a string. In some instances every part was sewed up except the neck ; the neck
Ancient Egyptian Skin-bottles : 1, apparently containing wine, balanced by another in a case, 4, on a pole; 2, 3, slung on the shoulder : 5, G, earned by hand ; 7, adapted to be sus- pended in a tree by laborers.
of the animal thus became the neck of the bottle. (See AVilkinson, Ane. Eg. i, 148-158.) The Greeks and Romans also were accustomed to use bottles made of skins, chiefly for wine (see Smith, Diet, of Class. Antiq. s. v. Vinum). See Skix-bottle.
Ancient Italian Skin-bottles. From the dtlineationa m ller- culaneum and Pompeii.
Skin-bottles doubtless existed among the Hebrews even in patriarchal times ; but the first clear notice of them does not occur till Josh, ix, 4, where it is said that the Gibeonites, wishing to impose upon Joshua as if they had come from a long distance, took "old sacks upon their asses, and wine-bottles, old, and rent, and bound up." So in the thirteenth verse of the same chapter: "these bottles of wine which we filled were new, and, behold, they be rent; and these our garments and our shoes are become old 'by reason of the very long journey." Age, then, had the effect of wearing and tearing the bottles in question, which must conse-
BOTTLE
861
BOTTLE
quently have been of skin (see Hackett's Ilhtstr. of Scripture, p. 44, 45). To the same effect is the passage in Job xxxii, 19, "My belly is as wine which hath no vent ; it is ready to burst like new bottles." Our Sav- iour's language (Matt, ix, 17; Luke v, 37, 38; Mark ii, 22) is thus clearly explained : " Men do not put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish;" "New wine must be put into new bottles, and both are preserved." To the conception of an English reader, who knows of no bottles but such as are made of clay or glass, the idea of bottles breaking through age presents an insu- perable difficulty; but skins may become "old, rent, and bound up;" they also prove, in time, hard and in- elastic, and would, in such a condition, be very unfit to hold new wine, probably in a state of active fer- mentation. Even new skins might be unable to re- sist the internal pressure caused by fermentation. If, therefore, by "new" is meant "untried," the passage just cited from Job presents no inconsistency.