Village

VIEW:16 DATA:01-04-2020

VILLAGE.—For the OT villages and their relation to the ‘mother’ city, see City, and cf. Fortification and Siegecraft, ad init. In all periods of Heb. history the cultivators of the soil lived for greater security in villages, the cultivated and pasture land of which was held in common. Solitary homesteads were unknown. The NT writers and Josephus also distinguish between a city (polis) and a village (kômç), the distinction being primarily a difference not of size but of status. Thus in Mar_1:38 the word rendered ‘towns’ is literally ‘village-cities’ (others render ‘market-towns’), i.e. places which are cities as regards population but not as regards constitutional status. When Josephus tells us that ‘the very least of’ the villages of Galilee ‘contained above 15,000 inhabitants’ (BJ III. iii. 2 [Niese, § 43]), he is, more suo, drawing a very long bow indeed!
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

Village. This word in addition to its ordinary sense, is often used, especially in the enumeration of towns in Jos_13:15; Jos_13:19 to imply unwalled suburbs outside the walled towns. Arab villages, as found in Arabia, are often mere collections of stone huts, "long, low rude hovels, roofed only with the stalks of palm leaves," or covered, for a time, with tent-cloths, which are removed when the tribe change their quarters. Others are more solidly built, as are most of the of Palestine, though, in some, the dwellings are mere mud-huts.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

vil?ā́j (כּפר, ḳāphār, חוּות, ḥawwōth, חצרים, ḥăcērı̄m, בּנות, bānōth, פּרזות, perāzōth; κώμη, kṓmē): (1) The general term for a village, in common with Aramaic and Arabic is ḳāphār (Son_7:11; 1Ch_27:25; kōpher; 1Sa_6:18; kephı̄r, Neh_6:2). This designation is derived from the idea of its offering ?cover? or shelter. It is used in combination, and place-names of this formation became prominent in post-Biblical times, probably because the villages so named had then grown into towns. A well-known Biblical instance of such names is Capernaum. (2) Ḥawwōth (always ?town? in English Versions of the Bible; see HAVVOTH-JAIR) means originally a group of tents (Arabic ḥiwa'). These in settled life soon became more permanent dwellings, or what we understand by a village. The term, however, is applied only to the villages of Jair in the tribe of Manasseh (Num_32:41; 1Ki_4:13). (3) Ḥăcērı̄m likewise came from nomadic life. They were originally enclosures specially for cattle, alongside of which dwellings for the herdsmen and peasantry naturally grew up (see HAZAR-ADDAR; HAZOR). They were unwalled (Lev_25:31) and lay around the cities (Jos_19:8). (4) Bānōth is literally ?daughters.? The word is applied to the dependent villages lying around the larger cities, and to which they looked as to a kind of metropolis (Num_21:25, etc.); the Revised Version (British and American) ?towns? except in Num_32:42. (5) Perāzōth means ?the open country,? but it soon came to mean the villages scattered in the open (Eze_38:11; Zec_2:4; Est_9:19). Some have sought to connect the Perizzites with this word and to regard them, not as a distinct people, but as the peasant class. Attempts have also been made to connect perāzōn in Jdg_5:7, Jdg_5:11 with the same root, and the King James Version rendered it ?inhabitants of the villages.? the Revised Version (British and American), on the contrary, gives it the meaning of ?rulers.? The versions indicate a word meaning authority, and probably the text should be emended to read rōzenı̄m, ?rulers.? A similar emendation is required in Hab_3:14. ?Village? in the Revised Version (British and American) of the New Testament invariably represents the Greek kōmē, but in 2 Macc 8:6 the Revised Version (British and American) Apocrypha has ?village? for chṓra, lit. ?country.? See CITY; TOWN.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.


a collection of houses less regular and important than a town (q.v.) or city (q.v.). SEE TOPOGRAPHICAL TERMS.
I. Original Terms. — The word “village” stands in the A.V. as the rendering of many Heb. and Gr. words, several of which represent quite other ideas.
1. The proper Heb. term for village is כָּפָר, kaphâr (from כָּפִר, to cover; Sept. κώμη; Vulg. villa), which appears also in the forms כְּפַיר, kephir (Neh_6:2, κώμη, viculus), and כֹּפֶר, kôpher (1Sa_6:18, κώμη, villa), and is represented by the Arabic kefr, still so much in use. In the Heb. the prefix caphar implied a regular village, as Capernaum, which place, however, had in later times outgrown the limits implied by its original designation (Lightfoot, infra; Stanley, Sin; and Pal. p. 521-527; 1Ma_7:31). SEE CAPHAR.
Another term, חָצֵר, chatser (from חָצִר, to hedge in; Sept. ἔπαυλις or κώμη; Vulg. villa, castellum, or oppidum), properly an enclosure, is used of farm buildings enclosing a court of the encampment of nomads (Gen_28:16; Deu_2:25, etc.); and of hamlets near towns (Jos_13:23; Jos_13:28; Jos_15:32 sq.; 1Ch_4:33; Neh_11:2; Neh_11:5), especially the un-walled suburbs near walled towns (Lev_25:31; comp. Lev_25:34). They were in reality “pastoral settlements,” or little enclosures formed partly for shelter, and partly as a kind of defense from the wandering Arabs. The enclosures, sometimes, were nothing better than tents, but pitched in the form of an encampment, as in the case still of the Jehalin Arabs, who arrange their tents in a sort of circle for the sake of better security and mutual protection (Wilson, Lands of the Bible, 2, 710; Robinson, Res. 2, 468). In some parts of Syria the term haush is applied to a few houses, which are constructed so as to join together, and thereby present a defense against the Arab robbers, the entrance into the haush being usually through a strong wooden gate, which is firmly secured every evening (Burckhardt, Syria, p. 212). Such, probably, of whatever material formed, were the villages spoken of in connection with some of the ancient towns of the Israelites; those, especially, which bordered on pasture or desert lands. The places to which, in the Old Test., the term chatser is applied were mostly in the outskirts of the country (Stanley, Sin. and Pal. p. 526).
Different from these were the בְּנוֹת הָעַיר, daughters of the city, which were small towns or villages lying near to a great city, dependent on it, and included under its jurisdiction. SEE DAUGHTER.
The term חִוָּה, chavoth, from חָוָה, to breathe, to live, qu. place of living, though others prefer to derive it from the Arabic chawa, convolvit, in gyrum se flexit, whence chewaon, a tent, or a cluster of tents, an abode of nomads, also denotes a village. The term occurs only in the plural, and only in reference to certain villages or small towns bearing the name of Havoth- jair. These are mentioned in Num_32:42 Deu_3:14; Jos_13:30; Jdg_10:4; 1Ki_4:13. SEE HAVOTH-JAIR.
In the New Test. the term κώμη is applied to Bethphage. (Mat_21:2), Bethany (Luk_10:38; Joh_11:1), Emmaus (Luk_24:13), Bethlehem (Joh_7:42). A distinction between city or town (πόλις) and village (κώμη) is pointed out in Luk_8:1. On the other hand, Bethsaida is called πόλις (Luk_9:10; Joh_1:45), and, also κώμη (Mar_8:23; Mar_8:26), unless by the latter word we are to understand the suburbs of the town, which meaning seems to belong to “country” (Mar_6:56). The relation of dependence on a chief town of a district appears to be denoted by the phrase “villages of Caesarea Philippi” (Mar_8:27). Bethsaida of Gaulonitis, to which Herod Philip II allowed the dignity of a city (Josephus, Ant. v. 2,1), is called πόλις; unless these two are one and the same place (Thomson, Land and Book).
2. Other terms are improperly thus rendered. Thus Hab_3:14, the plur. of פָּרָז, paraz (from פָּרִז, to separate, hence to judge, like κρίνω), is rendered “villages.” It should be “captains,” or “eminent men,” men separated by their rank or prowess from the mass (Sept. δυ νάσται;Vulg. princeps, prafectus). In Jdg_5:7; Jdg_5:11, the cognate פַּרָזוֹן, perazon, properly rulers (Sept. δυνα τοί),is rendered ”villages;” and Eze_38:11^ פְּרָזוֹת, peramoth, means “open country.” The cognate noun פְּרָזַי, however, signifying a countryman, a rustic, with כֹפֶר prefixed, signifies a “country village” (φερεζαῖος, oppidum).
The word מַגְרָשׁ, migrâsh (from גָּרִשׁ, to draw out; περισπόριον; suburbanum), transl. “village” in Lev_25:31, is more correctly rendered in Lev_25:34 “suburb.”
II. Comparative Statements. — There is little in the Old Test. to enable us more precisely to define a village of Palestine, beyond the fact that it was destitute of walls or external defenses. Persian villages are spoken of in similar terms (Eze_38:11; Est_9:19). The rabbins make the distinction between a city (עיר) and a village (כפר) to lie in the former having, and the latter wanting, the number of learned men (ten) deemed requisite to entitle a place to a synagogue (Lightfoot, Chorograph. Matthew Praemiss. c. 98; and Hor. Heb. in Mat_4:23). This is a distinction, however, so purely arbitrary and artificial that it is worthless for any practical purpose. Galilee, in our Lord's time, contained many villages and village-towns; and Josephus says that in his time there were in Galilee two hundred and four towns and villages (πόλεις καὶ κώμαι), some of which last had walls (Josephus, Life, § 45). At present the country is almost depopulated (Raumer, Palest. p. 105; Stanley. Sin. and Pal. p. 384). Most modern Turkish and Persian villages have a menil or medhâfa, a house for travelers (Burckhardt, Syria, p. 295;. Robinson, 2, 19; Martyn, Life, p. 437). Arab villages, as found in Arabia, are often mere collections of stone huts “long, low, rude hovels, roofed only with the stalks of palm- leaves,” or covered for a time with tent-cloths, which are removed when the tribe change their quarters. Others are more solidly built, as are most of the modern villages of Palestine, though in some the dwellings are mere mud-huts (Robinson, Res. 1, 167; 2, 13,14, 44, 387 Hasselquist, Trav. p. 155; Stanley, Sin. and Pal. p. 233; App. § 83, p. 525). Arab villages of the Hejaz and Yemen often consist of huts with circular roofs of leaves or grass, resembling the description given by Sallust of the Numidian mapalia, viz. ships with the keel uppermost (Sallust, Jug. 18; Shaw, Trav. p. 220; Niebuhr, Descr. de l'Arab. p. 54).



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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