Basket

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BASKET.—The names of a round score of baskets in use in NT times are known from the Mishna (see Krengel, Das Hausgerät in der Mishnah, pp. 39–45). They were made of willow, rush, palm-leaf, and other materials, and used in an endless variety of ways, for purely domestic purposes, in agriculture, in gathering and serving fruit, and for collecting the alms in kind for the poor, etc. Some had handles, others lids, some had both, others had neither. In OT times the commonest basket was the sal, made, at least in later times, of peeled willows or palm-leaves. It was large and flat like the Roman canistrum, and, like it, was used for carrying bread (Gen_40:16 ff.) and other articles of food (Jdg_6:19), and for presenting the meal-offerings at the sanctuary (Exo_29:3). Another (dûd), also of wicker-work, probably resembled the calathus, which tapered towards the bottom, and was used in fruit-gathering (Jer_24:1). In what respect it differed from Amos’ ‘basket of summer fruit’ (Amo_8:1) is unknown. A fourth and larger variety was employed for carrying home the produce of the fields (Deu_28:5 ‘blessed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough,’ RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), and for presenting the first-fruits (Deu_26:2).
In NT interest centres in the two varieties of basket distinguished consistently by the Evangelists in their accounts of the feeding of the 5000 and the 4000 respectively, the kophinos and the sphyris. The kophinos (Mat_14:20) is probably to be identified with the exceedingly popular kûphâ of the Mishna, which ‘was provided with a cord for a handle by means of which it was usually carried on the back’ (Krengel), with provisions, etc., and which, therefore, the disciples would naturally have with them. The Jews of Juvenal’s day carried such a provision basket (cophinus). The sphyris or spyris (Mat_15:37, Mar_8:8), from its use in St. Paul’s case (Act_9:25), must have been considerably larger than the other, and might for distinction be rendered ‘hamper.’
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

Gen_40:16; "I had three white (margin 'full of holes,' i.e. of open work, or rather 'baskets of white bread') baskets on my head." The Bible accurately represents Egyptian custom (Herodotus, 2:35), whereby men carried burdens on the head, women on the shoulders. In the distinct miracles of feeding the 5,000 and the 4,000 the KJV uses the stone term "baskets" for distinct Greek words. In Mat_14:20; Mar_6:43; Luk_9:17; Joh_6:13, the disciples took up twelve kophinoi of fragments at the feeding of the 5,000. In feeding the 4,000 with seven loaves recorded by two evangelists, the disciples took up seven spurides (Mat_15:37; Mar_8:8). Now kofinoi is always used by the evangelists when the miracle of the 5,000 is spoken of, spurides when that of the 4,000 is spoken of.
Thus also in referring back to the miracle (Mat_16:9-10) Jesus says: "Do ye not ... remember the five loaves of the 5,000, and how many kofinoi) ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the 4,000, and how many spurides) ye took up?" That the spurides) were of large size appears from Paul's having been let down in one from the wall (Act_9:25). The kofinoi being twelve probably answers to the twelve disciples, a provision basket for each, and so are likely to have been smaller. The accurate distinction in the use of the terms so invariably made in the record of the miracles marks both events as real and distinct, not, as rationalists have guessed, different versions of one miracle.
The coincidence is so undesigned that it escaped our translators altogether; it therefore can only be the result of genuineness and truth in the different evangelists' accounts. In traveling through Samaria or Gentile regions the Jews used kofinoi, not to be defiled by eating Gentile unclean foods. Smith's Bible Dictionary wrongly makes the kofinos larger than the spuris.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Basket. The Hebrew terms, used in the description of this article, are as follows:
(1) Sal, so called from the twigs of which it was originally made, specially used for holding bread. Gen_40:16 ff. Exo_29:3; Exo_29:23; Lev_8:2; Lev_8:26; Lev_8:31; Num_6:15; Num_6:17; Num_6:19.
(2) Salsilloth, a word of kindred origin, applied to the basket used in gathering grapes. Jer_6:9.
(3) Tene, in which the first-fruits of the harvest were presented. Deu_26:2; Deu_26:4.
(4) Celub, so called from its similarity to a bird-cage.
(5) Dud, used for carrying fruit, Jer_24:1-2, as well as, on a larger scale, for carrying clay to the brick-yard, Psa_81:6, (pots, Authorized Version), or for holding bulky articles. 2Ki_10:7. In the New Testament, baskets are described under three different terms.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

bas?ket: Four kinds of ?baskets? come to view in the Old Testament under the Hebrew names, dūdh, ṭene', ṣal and kelūbh). There is little, however, in these names, or in the narratives where they are found, to indicate definitely what the differences of size and shape and use were. The Mishna renders us some help in our uncertainty, giving numerous names and descriptions of ?baskets? in use among the ancient Hebrews (see Kreugel, Dasse Hausgerat in der Mishna, 39-45). They were variously m ade 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.
1. Meaning of Old Testament Terms
(1) Dūdh 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 Psa_81:6, where it is used as a symbol of Egyptian bondage), and such as the Egyptians themselves used for that purpose (Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, I, 379), probably a large, shallow basket, made of wicker-work. It stood for a basket that was used in fruit-gathering (see Jer_24:1), but how it differed from Amos' ?basket of summer fruit? (Amo_8:1) we do not know. Dūdh is used for the ?pot? in which meat was boiled (1Sa_2:14), showing probably that a pot-shaped ?basket? was known by this name. Then it seems to have stood for a basket tapering toward the bottom like the calathus of the Romans. So we seem forced to conclude that the term was generic, not specific.
(2) The commonest basket in use in Old Testament times was the ṣal. It was the ?basket? in which the court-baker of Egypt carried about his confectionery on his head (Gen_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 (Gen_40:16; Jdg_6:19). Meat for the meat offerings and the unleavened bread, were placed in it (Exo_29:3; Lev_8:2; Num_6:15). It is expressly required that the unleavened cakes be placed and offered in such a ?basket.? While a ?basket,? it was dish-shaped, larger or smaller in size, it would seem, according to demand, and perhaps of finer texture than the dūdȟ.
(3) The ṭene' was a large, deep basket, in which grain and other products of garden or field were carried home, and kept (Deu_28:5, Deu_28:17), in which the first-fruits were preserved (Deu_26:2), and the tithes transported to the sanctuary (Deu_26:2 f). It has been thought probable that the ḥabya, the basket of clay and straw of the Palestine peasantry of today, is a sort of survival or counterpart of it. It has the general shape of a jar, and is used for storing and keeping wheat, barley, oats, etc. At the top is the mouth into which the grain is poured, and at the bottom is an orifice through which it can be taken out as needed, when the opening is again closed with a rag. The Septuagint translates ṭene' by kártallos, which denotes a basket of the shape of an inverted cone.
(4) The term kelubh, found in Amo_8:1 for a ?fruit-basket,? is used in Jer_5:27 (the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) ?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.
2. Meaning of New Testament Terms
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 kóphinos and spurı́s (Westcott-Hort sphurı́s).
(1) The kophinos (Mat_14:20; Mar_6:43; Luk_9:17; Joh_6:13) may be confidently identified with the kūphtā' 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 (of Kreugel, and Broadus, Commentary in the place cited.). The Jews of Juvenal's day carried such a specific ?provision-basket? with them on their journeys regularly, and the Latin for it is a transliteration of this Greek word, cophinus (compare Juvenal iii.14, and Jastrow, Dictionary, article ?Basket?). Some idea of its size may be drawn from the fact that in CIG, 1625, 46, the word denotes a Beotian measure of about two gallons.
(2) The sphuris or spuris (Mat_15:37; Mar_8:8) we may be sure, from its being used in letting Paul down from the wall at Damascus (Act_9:25, etc.), was considerably larger than the kophinos and quite different in shape and uses. It might for distinction fitly be rendered ?hamper,? as Professor Kennedy suggests. Certainly neither the Greek nor ancient usage justifies any confusion.
(3) The sargánē (2Co_11:33) means anything plaited, or sometimes more specifically a fish-basket.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

There are several words in the Hebrew Scriptures by which different kinds of baskets appear to be indicated:?

Fig. 83?Large Baskets
1. Dud which occurs in 2Ki_10:7, where the heads of Ahab's sons are sent from Samaria to Jezreel in baskets; Jer_24:2, as containing figs; and Psa_81:6 (rendered pots), also as containing figs; where, therefore, deliverance from the baskets means deliverance from the bondage of carrying burdens in baskets. In fact, very heavy burdens were thus carried in Egypt, its corn in very large baskets from the field to the threshing-floor, and from the threshing-floor to the granaries. They were carried between two men by a pole resting on their shoulders; which agrees with the previous clause of the cited text, 'I removed his shoulder from the burden.' This labor and form of the basket are often shown in the Egyptian sculptures.
2. Teba, which occurs in connection with agricultural objects, 'the basket and the store' (Deu_26:2-4; Deu_28:5-17), and would therefore appear to have been somewhat similar to the above; and, in fact, the Egyptian sculptures show different baskets applied to this use.
3. Kelub. From the etymology, this appears to have been an interwoven basket, made of leaves or rushes. In Jer_5:27, however, it is used for a bird-cage, which must have been of open work, and probably not unlike our own wicker bird-cages. The name is also applied to fruit-baskets (Amo_8:1-2), Egyptian examples of which are presented in #2 and #4 (which contain pomegranates) of the annexed figure.

Fig. 84?Ancient Egyptian baskets
4. Salsilloth, occurs only in Jer_6:9, where it obviously denotes baskets in which grapes were deposited as they were gathered. The form of the baskets used for this purpose is often shown on the Egyptian monuments, and is similar to that represented in #4 of the above fig. 84.
5. In all the other places where the word basket occurs, we are doubtless to understand a basket made of rushes, similar both in form and material to those used by carpenters for carrying their tools. This is still the common kind of basket throughout Western Asia; and its use in ancient Egypt is shown by an actual specimen which was found in a tomb at Thebes, and which is now in the British Museum. It was, in fact, a carpenter's basket, and contained his tools ( #1, see fig. 84).
The specimens of Egyptian baskets in the British Museum, represented in fig. 84, convey a favorable idea of the basket-work of ancient times. Some of these are worked ornamentally with colors (#3, #5, see fig. 84). And besides these the monuments exhibit a large variety of hand-baskets, of different shapes, and so extensively employed as to show the numerous applications of basket-work in the remote times to which these representations extend. They are mostly manufactured, the stronger and larger sorts of the fibers, and the finer of the leaves of the palm-tree, and not infrequently of rushes, but more seldom of reeds.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Deu_28:5 (c) Moses is telling us that GOD will give abundant increase for us to take home to ourselves and enjoy for ourselves if we let the Lord GOD command us, and if we give obedient service.

Deu_28:17 (c) Here we find the opposite truth expressed, for if we refuse to listen to GOD, and to walk with Him, we shall find that GOD withholds the blessing, and leaves us with empty hands and desolate hearts.

Jer_6:9 (b) The figure here is that of the enemy who invades the land and gathers into his own possession the persons and the properties of disobedient Israel.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.

Basket
the rendering in the Auth. Vers. of the following words:
1. SAL, סִל (Sept. usually κόφινος or σπυρίς, as in the N.T.), the most general term, so called from the twigs of which it was originally made; specially used, as the Greek κανοῦν (Hom. Od. 3, 442) and the Latin canistrum (Virg. En. 1:701), for holding bread (Gen_40:16 sq.; Exo_29:3; Exo_29:23; Lev_8:2; Lev_8:26; Lev_8:31; Num_6:15; Num_6:17; Num_6:19). The form of the Egyptian breadbasket is delineated in Wilkinson's Anc. Egypt. 3, 226, after the specimens represented in the tomb of Rameses III. These were made of gold (comp. Hom. Od. 10:355), and we must assume that the term sal passed from its strict etymological meaning to any vessel applied to the purpose. In Jdg_6:19, meat is served up in a sal, which could hardly have been of wicker-work. The expression “white baskets,” הֹרַי סלֵּי (Gen_40:16), is sometimes referred to the material of which the baskets were made (Symmachus, κανᾶ βαϊνά), or the white color of the peeled sticks, or lastly to their being “full of holes” (A. V. margin), i.e. open-work baskets. The name Sallai (Neh_11:8; Neh_12:20) seems to indicate that the manufacture of baskets was a recognised trade among the Hebrews.
2. SALSILLOTH'. סִלְסַלּוֹת), a word of kindred origin, applied to the basket used in gathering grapes (Jer_6:9).
3. TE'NE, טֶנֶא, in which the first-fruits of the harvest were presented (Deu_26:2; Deu_26:4). From its being coupled with the kneading-bowl (A. V. “store;” Deu_28:5; Deu_28:17), we may infer that it was also used for household purposes, perhaps to bring the corn to the mill. The equivalent term in the Sept. for this and the preceding Hebrew words is κάρταλλος, which specifically means a basket that tapers downward (κόφινος ὀξὺς τὰ κάτω, Suid.), similar to the Roman corbis. This shape of basket appears to have been familiar to the Egyptians (Wilkinson, 2:401).
4. KELUB', כְּלוּבso called from its similarity to a bird-cage or trap (κάρταλλος is used in the latter sense in Sir_11:30), probably in regard to its having a lid. From the etymology, this appears to have been an interwoven basket, made of leaves or rushes. In Jer_5:27, however, it is used for a bird-cage, which must have been of open work, and probably not unlike our own wicker bird-cages. The name is applied to fruit-baskets (Amo_8:1-2, where the Sept. gives ἄγγος; Symm. more correctly κάλαθος,Vulg. uncinus), Egyptian examples of which are presented in figs. 2 and 4 (which contain pomegranates) of the annexed cut.
5. DUD, דּוּד, or duday', דּוּדִי, used like the Greek κάλαθος (so the Sept.) for carrying figs (Jer_24:1-2), as well as on a larger scale for carrying clay to the brick-yard (Psa_81:6; Sept. κόφινος, Auth. Vers. pots), or for holding bulky articles (2Ki_10:7; Sept. κάρταλλος); the shape of this basket and the mode of carrying it usual among the brickmakers in Egypt is delineated in Wilkinson, 2:99, and aptly illustrates Psa_81:6. See BRICK. In fact, very heavy burdens were thus carried in Egypt, as corn in very large baskets from the field to the threshing-floor, and from the threshing-floor to the granaries. They were carried between two men by a pole resting on the shoulders. SEE AGRICULTURE. In 1Sa_2:14 : 2Ch_35:10; Job_41:20, however, the same word evidently means pots for boiling, and is translated accordingly.
In most places where the word basket occurs, we are doubtless to understand one made of rushes, similar both in form and material to those used by carpenters for carrying their tools. This is still the common kind of basket throughout Western Asia; and, its use in ancient Egypt is shown by an actual specimen which was found in a tomb at Thebes, and which is now in the British Museum. It was, in fact, a carpenter's basket, and contained his tools (fig. 1 above). Some of the Egyptian baskets are worked ornamentally with colors (figs. 3, 5, above; also the modern examples, figs. 2, 7, below). And besides these the monuments exhibit a large variety of hand-baskets of different shapes, and so extensively employed as to show the numerous applications of basket-work in the remote times to which these representations extend. They are mostly manufactured, the stronger and larger sorts of the fibres, and the finer of the leaves of the palm-tree, and not infrequently of rushes, but more seldom of reeds. — Kitto, s.v. Smith, s.v.
In the N.T. baskets are described under the three following terms, κόφινος, σπυρίς, and σαργάνη. The last occurs only in 2Co_11:33, in describing Paul's escape from Damascus: the word properly refers to any thing twisted like a rope (AEsch. Suppl. 791), or any article woven of rope (πλέγμα τι ἐκ σχοινίου Suid.); fish-baskets specially were so made (ἀπὸ σχοινίου πλεγμάτιον εἰς ὑποδοχὴν ἰχθύων, Etym. Mag.). It was evidently one of the larger and stronger description (Hackett's Illustra. of Script. p. 69). With regard to the two former words, it may be remarked that κόφινος is exclusively used in the description of the miracle of feeding the five thousand (Mat_14:20; Mat_16:9; Mar_6:43; Luk_9:17; Joh_6:13), and σπυρίς in that of the four thousand (Mat_15:37; Mar_8:8), the distinction is most definitely brought out in Mar_8:19-20. The σπυρίς is also mentioned as the means of Paul's escape (Act_9:25). The difference between these two kinds of baskets is not very apparent. Their construction appears to have been the same; for κόφινος is explained by Suidas as a “woven vessel” (ἀγγεῖον πλεκτόν), while σπυρίς is generally connected with sowing (σπεῖρα). The σπυρίς (Vulg. sporta) seems to have been most appropriately used of the provision-basket, the Roman sportula. Hesychius explains it as the “grain-basket” (τὸ τῶν πυρῶν ἄγγος, compare also the expression δεῖπνον ἀπὸ σπυρίδος, Athen. 8:17). The κόφινος seems to have been generally larger (Etym. Mag. βαθὺ καὶ κοῖλον χώρημα); since, as used by the Romans (Colum. 11:3, p. 460), it contained manure enough to make a portable hot-bed (see Smith's Dict. of Class. Ant. s.v. Cophinus); in Rome itself it was constantly carried about by the Jews (quorum cophinus fanumque supellex, Juv. Sat. 3, 14; 6:542). Greswell (Diss. 8, pt. 4) surmises that the use of the cophinus was to sleep in, but there is little to support this. Baskets probably formed a necessary article of furniture to the Jews, who, when travelling either among the Gentiles or the Samaritans, were accustomed to carry their provisions with them in baskets, in order to avoid defilement.



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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