Israelite ruins of Beersheba

People on my Israel tours often ask me how did people live in the days of the Old Testament.  It’s a very good question, actually, because understanding this brings a fuller picture to a contextual perspective of the Bible.  It goes without saying that people during Biblical times lived in modest means in comparison to how we live today.

A model of a typical Israelite house

The typical Israelite four-room house in the Iron Age I & II Periods (1200 BC- 586 BC) consisted of three elongated spaces running parallel each other and a fourth one perpendicular to the other three.  These types of houses can be seen throughout Israel, even at Avaris in Egypt centuries before where prototypes were uncovered. The rooms of the houses were often subdivided into smaller rooms. The central room was often open, with no roof covering. The other three usually had a roof to protect against the hot sun for most of the year and rain during the winter months. Pottery jars were stored here, providing both food (grains) and water. Oil lamps were normally kept in niches made in the wall. Furnishings were minimal in ancient Israel.

The courtyard and rooms of the house

The bottom two outside rooms sometimes had an open wall between it and the central courtyard. The cooking stove (called a taboon) was often located in the roofed courtyard.  It was in the courtyard where most daily activities took place. Also, it is suggested that animals were often stabled here. It seems that the house sometimes had a second floor (supported by stone monolithic columns. House members often slept on the roof. Occasionally, a fifth room was added to the plan, especially (like at Beersheba), the house was located along the outside fortification “casemate” wall of the city.

An overhead perspective

Four-room houses varied in size.  Some suggest that these houses included four rooms to allow the laws of purification (e.g. Leviticus 12) to be put in practice.  Individual rooms could be used by impure family members, such as a impure woman following childbirth or menstruation. Although there was no restrictions for women to stay in their homes during times of impurity, it is reasonable to suggest that staying in separate rooms allowed other to not become impure themselves.

To date, 100s of four-room houses have been uncovered.