Gathering Stone on Stone Floors
8 Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?
9 And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.
10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. (Luke 15:8-10)
I just smile every time I read this passage. "If she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?"
If you have ever excavated a private residence in Israel, then it is a simple process to understand WHY it is necessary to
One... light a candle
And two... sweep the house
And three... seek diligently for the coin.
For goodness sakes, there are but four types of floors in ancient Israel. The richest of homes have a marble or mosaic floor (tesserae); but the middle-class people don't have marble or mosaic floors, they have a rock floor with dirt or plaster mortar holding it together. If they have extra money in the household, there might be a layer of plaster over the rock floor to help level it and smooth it out or a foundation of mud brick. But, in the poorest of homes, the floor is dirt. Wooden floors were the exception rather than the rule.
When excavating, there are a couple of clues that indicate that one is nearing a floor. 1) There will be pottery sherds beginning to appear in the strata. At first, the sherds will be standing upright, but in moving closer to the floor, the sherds will be lying on the floor itself. And 2) "coins" might appear where they were dropped in a house lost by a woman such as in the passage above.
I smile every time I read that passage because, in actuality, in a home with a stone floor, I have news for you. The floor isn't level. It curves along with the stone. And should a coin be dropped, chances are.... It will be lost until some archaeological volunteer digs it up some 2,000 years later. That coin is going to hit stone or hit the dirt/plaster mortar. If it hits the dirt, it may be gone forever from that moment on. If it hits the stone, it's going to roll until it hits the dirt, and ditto my last statement, it may be gone forever.
The lady of the house will need to light a candle to see inside the small stone home with only one or two small windows to let in natural light. If she is in a tenement house on the upper level, then there will probably only be one window, and then there is a choice, in cold weather, as to closing a shutter over the window and being somewhat warmer but sitting and working in the dark, or allowing some sunlight in and to lose what little heat would be available.
That text implies that a single candle light will be sufficient to see a coin lodged in a stone floor with dirt mortar in a small home with limited natural light. I smile at that thought.
Diligent? Yeah, she will have to be diligent to seek and to find that lost coin that's entrapped in one of the dozens of cracks in the stone floor.
Rejoice? Oh yeah, she's going to rejoice "if" she finds the coin, and when she does, she will be proclaiming out her small, natural-light window to her neighbors who will rejoice with her for having found a lost coin on a stone floor.
Yeah, I smile every time I read that passage.
9 And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.
10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. (Luke 15:8-10)
I just smile every time I read this passage. "If she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?"
If you have ever excavated a private residence in Israel, then it is a simple process to understand WHY it is necessary to
One... light a candle
And two... sweep the house
And three... seek diligently for the coin.
For goodness sakes, there are but four types of floors in ancient Israel. The richest of homes have a marble or mosaic floor (tesserae); but the middle-class people don't have marble or mosaic floors, they have a rock floor with dirt or plaster mortar holding it together. If they have extra money in the household, there might be a layer of plaster over the rock floor to help level it and smooth it out or a foundation of mud brick. But, in the poorest of homes, the floor is dirt. Wooden floors were the exception rather than the rule.
When excavating, there are a couple of clues that indicate that one is nearing a floor. 1) There will be pottery sherds beginning to appear in the strata. At first, the sherds will be standing upright, but in moving closer to the floor, the sherds will be lying on the floor itself. And 2) "coins" might appear where they were dropped in a house lost by a woman such as in the passage above.
I smile every time I read that passage because, in actuality, in a home with a stone floor, I have news for you. The floor isn't level. It curves along with the stone. And should a coin be dropped, chances are.... It will be lost until some archaeological volunteer digs it up some 2,000 years later. That coin is going to hit stone or hit the dirt/plaster mortar. If it hits the dirt, it may be gone forever from that moment on. If it hits the stone, it's going to roll until it hits the dirt, and ditto my last statement, it may be gone forever.
The lady of the house will need to light a candle to see inside the small stone home with only one or two small windows to let in natural light. If she is in a tenement house on the upper level, then there will probably only be one window, and then there is a choice, in cold weather, as to closing a shutter over the window and being somewhat warmer but sitting and working in the dark, or allowing some sunlight in and to lose what little heat would be available.
That text implies that a single candle light will be sufficient to see a coin lodged in a stone floor with dirt mortar in a small home with limited natural light. I smile at that thought.
Diligent? Yeah, she will have to be diligent to seek and to find that lost coin that's entrapped in one of the dozens of cracks in the stone floor.
Rejoice? Oh yeah, she's going to rejoice "if" she finds the coin, and when she does, she will be proclaiming out her small, natural-light window to her neighbors who will rejoice with her for having found a lost coin on a stone floor.
Yeah, I smile every time I read that passage.
posted by ~serapha~ at 2:46 AM
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