Irrigation

Holman Bible Dictionary

Old Testament The dry climate of the Ancient Near East made the transportation of water, often across long distances, a necessity. Large canal systems crossed the lands of Egypt and Mesopotamia, providing the vast amounts of water necessary to support crops during the dry months of March to October. In Egypt, the second highest official, the vizier, oversaw the maintenance of canals and the allocation of water to the provinces. Joseph may have fulfilled this role during his service for Pharaoh. Water was drawn from the Nile River and offshoot irrigation canals by means of a hinged pole with a hanging bucket on the end. Egypt's canal system allowed agricultural use of the highly fertile desert lands that the annual flooding of the Nile did not cover. During the Exile of Judah in Babylon, canals as large as twenty-five yards wide and several miles long carried the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates to field and city. Commercial ships used these waterways to transport produce between outlying farms and major cities.

The irrigation of fields was not widely practiced in ancient Israel. Instead, farmers relied upon the winter rains to provide all the water necessary for crops during the coming year. Fields and gardens close to water sources may have used small irrigation channels, and some fields may have been watered by hand in particularly dry years. Runoff from the rains was collected and diverted through conduits to both communal and private cisterns for drinking water. In larger cities such as Gezer, Megiddo, Hazor, and Jerusalem engineers and workmen produced huge underground tunnel systems to provide the citizens with ample supplies of water. These tunnels maintained the cities needs in times of siege.

New Testament During Intertestamental and New Testament times massive Roman aqueducts were built to provide fresh water for the growing cities. A two-channeled canal ran fifteen miles from its source to the coastal city of Caesarea. Water for Jerusalem was carried northward through an elaborate series of canals and pools from the Bethlehem area. Along the Dead Sea, where rain seldom fell, communities with elaborate canals and catchponds thrived by capturing the runoff of rains that fell in the hill country and drained towards the Jordan Valley. Cities in the Negev developed an extensive network of dams to collect infrequent rains, allowing them to turn the desert into thriving orchards and wheat fields.

David Maltsberger

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Irrigation . Owing to the lack of a sufficient rainfall, Babylonia and Egypt have to be supplied with water from their respective rivers. This is conveyed over the country by canals. The water is conducted along these canals by various mechanical devices, and at a cost of great labour. In Palestine the need for artificial irrigation is not so great, as is indicated by the contrast with Egypt in   Deuteronomy 11:10 . As a rule the winter rainfall is sufficient for the ordinary cereal crops, and no special irrigation is necessary. The case is different, however, in vegetable and fruit-gardens, which would be destroyed by the long summer droughts. They are always established near natural supplies of water, which is made to flow from the source (either directly, or raised, when necessary, by a sakiyeh or endless chain of buckets worked by a horse, ox, or donkey) into little channels ramifying through the garden. When the channels are, as often, simply dug in the earth, they can be stopped or diverted with the foot , as in the passage quoted. Artificial water-pools for gardens are referred to in   Ecclesiastes 2:6 . A storage-pool is an almost universal feature in such gardens.

R. A. S. Macalister.

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Deuteronomy 11:10

For purposes of irrigation, water was raised from streams or pools by water-wheels, or by a shaduf, commonly used on the banks of the Nile to the present day.

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) The act or process of irrigating, or the state of being irrigated; especially, the operation of causing water to flow over lands, for nourishing plants.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

ir - i - gā´shun  : No equivalent for this word is found in Biblical writings, although the use of irrigation for maintaining vegetable life is frequently implied (  Ecclesiastes 2:5 ,  Ecclesiastes 2:6;  Isaiah 58:11 ). To one familiar with the methods of irrigation practiced in Palestine, Syria and Egypt, the passage, "where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs" ( Deuteronomy 11:10 ), is easily explained. The water is brought in channels to the gardens, where it is distributed in turn to the different square plots bounded by banks of earth, or along the rows of growing vegetables planted on the sides of the trenches. In stony soil the breach in the canal leading to a particular plot is opened and closed with a hoe. Any obstruction in the trench is similarly removed, while in the soft, loamy soil of the coastal plain or in the Nile valley these operations can be done with the foot; a practice still commonly seen.

The remains of the great irrigation works of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians leave no doubt as to the extent to which they used water to redeem the deserts. In Palestine and Syria there was less need ( Deuteronomy 10:7;  Deuteronomy 11:11 ) for irrigation. Here there is an annual fall of from 30 to 40 inches, coming principally during the winter. This is sufficient for the main crops. The summer supply of vegetables, as well as the fruit and mulberry trees, requires irrigation. Hardly a drop of many mountain streams is allowed to reach the sea, but is used to water the gardens of the mountain terraces and plains. This supply is now being supplemented by the introduction of thousands of pumps and oil engines for raising the water of the wells sufficiently to run it through the irrigation canals. Where a spring is small, its supply is gathered into a birket , or cistern, and then drawn off through a large outlet into the trenches, sometimes several days being required to fill the cistern. In  Ecclesiastes 2:6 , Solomon is made to say, "I made me pools of water, to water therefrom the forest." This passage helps to explain the uses of the so-called Pools of Solomon, South of Jerusalem. In this same district are traces of the ancient terraces which were probably watered from these pools. See Agriculture; Garden .

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Bibliography Information McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Irrigation'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/i/irrigation.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.