Rope

Rope and cord are everywhere in Scripture and almost never the subject of a sentence. They tie tent-pegs into the ground, bind prisoners and oxen, fall as lots that allot land or expose guilt, and serve the prophets as a ready figure for whatever holds a person fast — love, affliction, sin. The umbrella is gathered under three literal uses (woven strength, the rope worn on the head as an emblem of servitude, and the cord used in casting lots) and three figurative uses (the cords of love, of affliction, and of temptation).

The Threefold Cord and the Tabernacle's Tackle

The wisdom proverb in Ec 4:12 stakes a claim about cordage that the rest of the umbrella keeps borrowing: "And if a man prevails against him who is alone, two will withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken" (Ec 4:12). Strength comes from twisting strands together; what is woven resists what a single line cannot.

The first place rope appears as something one actually handles in Israel's life is the tabernacle inventory. Cords pin the tent-walls down. Ex 35:18 names "the pins of the tabernacle, and the pins of the court, and their cords" (Ex 35:18) among the sanctuary's furnishings, and Ex 39:40 repeats them with "the hangings of the court, its pillars, and its sockets, and the screen for the gate of the court, its cords, and its pins, and all the instruments of the service of the tabernacle, for the tent of meeting" (Ex 39:40). The dwelling-place of Yahweh stands by lines of rope.

Bound and Led

Rope is also what one person uses to take hold of another. Judges 15:13 records the men of Judah binding Samson: "we will bind you fast, and deliver you into their hand: but surely we will not kill you. And they bound him with two new ropes, and brought him up from the rock" (Jg 15:13). Job's challenge over the wild-ox turns on the same image — the question whether the unruly creature can be tied: "Can you bind the wild-ox with his band in the furrow? Or will he harrow the valleys after you?" (Job 39:10).

Where the cord around the wrists hardens into iron, Scripture calls it a fetter, and the picture stays the same: a captive taken and led away. Manasseh is bound by Assyria — "took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon" (2Ch 33:11). Zedekiah is treated identically by the same captor a generation later: "they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon" (2Ki 25:7). Jeremiah is found by Nebuzaradan at Ramah "bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah, who were carried away captive to Babylon" (Jer 40:1). The Philistines blind Samson and bring him "down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of bronze; and he ground in the prison-house" (Jg 16:21). In the Gospels the same vocabulary belongs to the Gerasene demoniac, "often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent apart by him, and the fetters broken in pieces" (Mr 5:4), and to John, whom "Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold on … and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias" (Mr 6:17). Sirach uses the same image in the household: of the unprofitable servant, "Set him to [such] works as are suited to him, And if he does not obey make his fetters heavy" (Sir 33:28).

Ropes on the Head: An Emblem of Surrender

Rope is also worn — not by the binder but by the bound — as a sign of complete submission. When Ben-hadad of Aram needs to throw himself on the mercy of the king of Israel, his slaves propose the gesture: "let us, we pray you, put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes on our heads, and go out to the king of Israel: perhaps he will save your soul" (1Ki 20:31). They do exactly that — "So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and [put] ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel" (1Ki 20:32). The cord around the head says, in advance of any speech, that the wearer offers his neck.

The Cord Cast as a Lot

A measuring-line and a cast lot are both rope put to a particular use, and Scripture treats them together. Mic 2:5 turns on the disinheritance of the unjust: "Therefore you will have none who will cast the line by lot in the assembly of Yahweh" (Mic 2:5).

The lot is how Israel apportions, decides, and exposes. Land is allotted: "the land will be divided by lot: according to the names of the tribes of their fathers they will inherit" (Nu 26:55), and Joshua "cast lots for them in Shiloh before Yahweh: and there Joshua divided the land to the sons of Israel according to their divisions" (Jos 18:10). The lot exposes: Saul's casting at Michmash sets Jonathan apart — "And Jonathan and Saul were taken [by lot]; but the people escaped" (1Sa 14:41). It exposes Jonah aboard the ship: "Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is on us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah" (Jon 1:7). The Day of Atonement ritual divides the two goats by lot: "And Aaron will cast lots on the two goats; one lot for [the name of the Speech of] Yahweh, and the other lot for Azazel" (Le 16:8). In Esther the lot sets the date for genocide: "they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, [to] the twelfth [month], which is the month Adar" (Es 3:7). 1 Maccabees uses the same vocabulary for confiscated land: Antiochus orders "that he should settle foreigners to live in all their coasts, and divide their land by lot" (1Ma 3:36).

The wisdom literature draws the matter to its conclusion. The lot looks random; the result is not: "The lot is cast into the lap; But the whole disposing of it is of Yahweh" (Pr 16:33). And socially, "The lot causes contentions to cease, And parts between the mighty" (Pr 18:18).

Cords of Love, Cords of Affliction, Cords of Sin

When the prophets and the wisdom writers want a figure for what holds a person, they reach for rope. Yahweh's leading of Ephraim is so figured: "I drew them with cords of man, with bands of love; and [my Speech] was to them as those who lift up the yoke from their jaws; and I laid food before them" (Hos 11:4). The cord here is gentle — what an ox-driver loosens at the jaw, not what binds the wrist.

Elihu's speech in Job 36 gives the harder version: "And if they are bound in fetters, And are taken in the cords of affliction" (Job 36:8) — affliction itself as a binding the sufferer cannot slip. The psalmist of Ps 140 uses the same picture for what enemies lay in the path: "The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; They have spread a net by the wayside; They have set traps for me. Selah" (Ps 140:5). And Proverbs draws the picture inward, so that the cords are spun by the bound man himself: "His own iniquities will take the wicked, And he will be held with the cords of his sin" (Pr 5:22).

The umbrella ends where the figure goes furthest from the workshop. The threefold cord that "is not quickly broken" (Ec 4:12) is a tool of strength when twisted by the wise; it becomes, in the prophets' hands, the very image of how love, affliction, and sin each take and hold.