Banquets in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

ban'-kwet. 1. The Ancient Hebrew Customs: (1) "Banquet" and "banqueting" in the King James Version always include and stand for wine-drinking, not simply "feast" or "feasting" in our sense. Thus (Song 2:4), "He brought me to the banqueting-house" is literally, "the house of wine," and Est 7:2 has in the Hebrew "a banquet of wine." In the New Testament we see a reflection of the same fact in 1 Pet 4:3 the King James Version, "We walked in .... excess of wine, banquetings" (Greek "drinkings"; the Revised Version (British and American) "carousings"). Compare Amos 6:7 the King James Version, "The banquet of them that stretched themselves," where the reference seems to be to reclining at wine-drinkings. See MEALS. The Hebrew of Job 1:4, "make a banquet," may refer to a social feast of a less objectionable sort (compare 41:6 the King James Version), though the Hebrew for "to drink" yayin "wine," was used as synonymous with "banquet." See SYMPOSIUM. Music, dancing and merriment usually attended all such festivities. Certainly the ancient Hebrews, like other peoples of the ancient East, were very fond of social feasting, and in Christ's day had acquired, from contact with Greeks and Romans, luxurious and bibulous habits, that often carried them to excess in their social feasts. 2. In Christ's Teaching and Practice: Among the Greeks the word for "feast" (doche) is from dechomai "to receive" (compare our English usage, "to receive" and "reception"). This word doche is used with poiein "to make," to signify "to make" or "give a feast." Compare Lk 5:29 where Levi "made a feast." (1) In view of existing customs and abuses, Christ taught His followers when they gave a banquet to invite the poor, etc. (Lk 14:13), rather than, as the fashion of the day called for, to bid the rich and influential. Much in the New Testament that has to do with banquets and banquetings will be obscure to us of the West if we do not keep in mind the many marked differences of custom between the East and the West. (2) "Banquets" were usually given in the house of the host to specially invited guests (Lk 14:15; Jn 2:2), but much more freedom was accorded to the uninvited than we of the West are accustomed to, as one finds to be true everywhere in the East today. The custom of reclining at meals (see MEALS; TRICLINIUM, etc.) was everywhere in vogue among the well-to-do in Christ's day, even in the case of the ordinary meals, the guest leaning upon...