Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
BOZ Christian missionaries in Eastern countries frequently speak of the goatskins and leathern bottles in which they carry water in their journeys. Skin-Bottles. ) Where the travelling is rough and the vessels likely to strike against each other, they are made of the strongest material that can be found. The skins or bottles used for new wine were of the freshest and most flexible kind, in order that they might the better endure the process of fermentation. Matt 9:17. The effect of smoke on a skin-bottle would be to blacken and shrivel it. Ps 119:83.
Water or wine put into such a bottle would all run out. Nearly Arab Water-Carner. all the drinking-water now used in Egypt is brought from the river Nile in skinbottles, by Arab water-carriers, as shown in the picture.