A Basket of Plenty

You might not give a lot of thought to the simple basket. Baskets have been used through the centuries by countless people for a variety of reasons. Although it is basic in design, its functional usefulness has left an indelible mark on human lives. The Bible also gives us many examples of how various types of baskets were used in ancient times.

Four kinds of "baskets" come to view in the Old Testament under the Hebrew names, dudh, Tene', cal and kelubh. They were variously made of willow, rush, palm-leaf, etc., and were used for various purposes, domestic and agricultural, for instance, in gathering and serving fruit, collecting alms in kind for the poor, etc. Some had handles, others lids, some both, others neither.

Dudh was probably a generic term for various kinds of baskets. It was probably the "basket" in which the Israelites in Egypt carried the clay for bricks (compare Psalm 81:6 where it is used as a symbol of Egyptian bondage), and such as the Egyptians themselves used for that purpose, probably a large, shallow basket, made of wicker-work.

The commonest basket in use in Old Testament times was the cal. It was the "basket" in which the court-baker of Egypt carried about his confectionery on his head (Genesis 40:16). It was made in later times at least of peeled willows, or palm leaves, and was sometimes at least large and flat like the canistrum of the Romans, and, like it, was used for carrying bread and other articles of food (Genesis 40:16; Judges 6:19).

The Tene' was a large, deep basket, in which grain and other products of garden or field were carried home, and kept (Deuteronomy 28:5,17), in which the first-fruits were preserved (Deuteronomy 26:2), and the tithes transported to the sanctuary (Deuteronomy 26:2 f).

The term kelubh, found in Amos 8:1 for a "fruit-basket," is used in Jeremiah 5:27 ("cage") for a bird-cage. But it is not at all unreasonable to suppose that a coarsely woven basket with a cover would be used by a fowler to carry home his feathered captives.

In the New Testament interest centers in two kinds of "basket," distinguished by the evangelists in their accounts of the feeding of the 5,000 and of the 4,000, called in Greek kophinos and spuris.

The kophinos (Matthew 14:20; Mark 6:43; Luke 9:17; John 6:13) may be confidently identified with the kuphta' of the Mishna which was provided with a cord for a handle by means of which it could be carried on the back with such provisions as the disciples on the occasions under consideration would naturally have with them.

The sphuris or spuris (Matthew 15:37; Mark 8:8) we may be sure, from its being used in letting Paul down from the wall at Damascus (Acts 9:25, etc.), was considerably larger than the kophinos and quite different in shape and uses.

Finally, there is yet another kind of basket that I have not mentioned, but is important in our daily lives, I am sure that it is quite familiar to all of you. It is the wastebasket. Wastebaskets are numerous. You find them in school, in the office, at home and at church. They hold the things we don't want, or are through using. Once in a great while we might unintentionally throw something valuable into the wastebasket.

A lowly wastebasket probably wouldn't have received as much attention as the previously mentioned baskets in Biblical times. After all, that's where garbage or trash is placed before being disposed of. But, let me leave you with this thought... Wouldn't it be nice if we could throw some of our words, acts of unkindness, and even many of our bad habits into the wastebasket and never use them again?

May God bless you!

Myree