BOTTLE

The accompanying engraving shows the form and nature of an ancient goatskin bottle, out of which a water-carrier is offering to sell a draught of water. After the skin has been stripped off from an animal, and properly dressed, the places where the legs had been are closed up; and where the neck was, is the opening left for receiving and discharging the contents of the bottle. These were readily borne upon the shoulder, Ge 21:14. See also Jos 9:4,13 Ps 119:83 Jer 13:12. By receiving the liquor poured into it, a skin bottle must be greatly swelled and distended; and still more, if the liquor be wine, by its fermentation while advancing to ripeness; so that if no vent be given to it, the liquor may overpower the strength of the bottle, or if it find any defect, it may ooze out by that. Hence the propriety of putting new wine into new bottles, which being in the prime of their strength, may resist the expansion of their contents, and preserve the wine to maturity; while old bottles may, without danger, contain old wine, whose fermentation is already past, Mt 9:17 Lu 5:38 Job 32:19. Such bottles, or skins, are still universally employed in travelling in the East, as well as by the public water-carriers, and for domestic uses. They were made, for storage in wine cellars, of the hides of oxen or camels. But the smaller ones of goatskins were more generally used for water as well as wine. The ancients, however, were acquainted with the art of making earthenware, and had a variety of elegant small bottles and vases for toilet purposes, made of the precious metals, of stone, glass, porcelain, and alabaster, Jer 19:1,10,11. See CRUSE, VINE, TEARS.

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Bottle. Bottle
A vessel made of skins for holding wine (Josh. 9:4. 13; 1 Sam. 16:20; Matt. 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37, 38), or milk (Judg. 4:19), or water (Gen. 21:14, 15, 19), or strong drink (Hab. 2:15).

Earthenware vessels were also similarly used (Jer. 19:1-10; 1 Kings 14:3; Isa. 30:14). In Job 32:19 (comp. Matt. 9:17; Luke 5:37, 38; Mark 2:22) the reference is to a wine-skin ready to burst through the fermentation of the wine. “Bottles of wine” in the Authorized Version of Hos. 7:5 is properly rendered in the Revised Version by “the heat of wine,” i.e., the fever of wine, its intoxicating strength.

The clouds are figuratively called the “bottles of heaven” (Job 38:37). A bottle blackened or shrivelled by smoke is referred to in Ps. 119:83 as an image to which the psalmist likens himself.

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BOTTLE. → General scriptures concerning Ge 21:14 → Made of animal skins Jos 9:4,13; Job 32:19; Ps 119:83; Mt 9:17; Mr 2:22; Lu 5:37,38 → Made of clay Isa 30:14; Jer 19:1,10; 48:12 → Used as a lachrymatory (a receptacle for tears) Ps 56:8 → See PITCHER

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The Arabs keep their water, milk and other liquids in leathern bottles. These are made of goatskins. When the animal is killed they cut off its feet and its head, and draw it in this manner out of the skin without opening its belly. The great leathern bottles are made of the skin of a he-goat, and the small ones, that serve instead of a bottle of water on the road, are made of a kid’s skin. The effect of external heat upon a skin bottle is indicated in (Psalms 119:83) "a bottle in the smoke," and of expansion produced by fermentation in (Matthew 9:17) "new wine in old bottles." Vessels of metal, earthen or glassware for liquids were in use among the Greeks, Egyptians, Etruscans and Assyrians, and also no doubt among the Jews, especially in later times. Thus (Jeremiah 19:1) "a potter’s earthen bottle." (Bottles were made by the ancient Egyptians of alabaster, gold, ivory and stone. They were of most exquisite workmanship and elegant forms. Tear-bottles were small urns of glass or pottery, made to contain the tears of mourners at funerals, and placed in the sepulchres at Rome and in Palestine. In some ancient tombs they are found in great numbers. (Psalms 56:8) refers to this custom.--ED.)

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bottle. Bottle, n. a vessel for liquor, viol, quart, bundle

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Bot″tle (�), n. [[OE. bote, botelle, OF. botel, bouteille, F. bouteille, fr. LL. buticula, dim. of butis, buttis, butta, flask. Cf. Butt a cask.]] 1. 1. A hollow vessel, usually of glass or earthenware (but formerly of leather), with a narrow neck or mouth, for holding liquids.
2. 2. The contents of a bottle; as much as a bottle contains; as, to drink a bottle of wine.
3. 3. Fig.: Intoxicating liquor; as, to drown one's reason in the bottle.
☞ Bottle is much used adjectively, or as the first part of a compound. Bottle ale, bottled ale. Shak. — Bottle brush, a cylindrical brush for cleansing the interior of bottles. — Bottle fish (Zoöl.), a kind of deep-sea eel (Saccopharynx ampullaceus), remarkable for its baglike gullet, which enables it to swallow fishes two or three times its won size. — Bottle flower. (Bot.) Same as Bluebottle. — Bottle glass, a coarse, green glass, used in the manufacture of bottles. Ure. — Bottle gourd (Bot.), the common gourd or calabash (Lagenaria Vulgaris), whose shell is used for bottles, dippers, etc. — Bottle grass (Bot.), a nutritious fodder grass (Setaria glauca and S. viridis); — called also foxtail, and green foxtail. — Bottle tit (Zoöl.), the European long-tailed titmouse; — so called from the shape of its nest. — Bottle tree (Bot.), an Australian tree (Sterculia rupestris), with a bottle-shaped, or greatly swollen, trunk. — Feeding bottle, Nursing bottle, a bottle with a rubber nipple (generally with an intervening tube), used in feeding infants.