What a wonderful Psalm! The psalmist says that even if he feels like a wineskin in the smoke, neglected and in a difficult situation, he would not forget God’s decrees and laws. In contrast, the poor wineskin was hung on a peg up in the thick smoke. The room would fill with smoke, but since people sat, ate, and slept on the floor, the really thick smoke usually stayed above them.
If a fire was built in a house, for warmth and/or to cook, it was usually built in the middle of the room. The wineskin was “in the smoke” because in the biblical era common houses did not have chimneys. “Though I am like a wineskin in the smoke, I do not forget your decrees” (Psalm 119:83 NIV). People hung their wineskins from pegs to keep them from being accidentally kicked, and also because they were less likely to spill when hung. Psalms speaks of a wineskin being hung from a peg.
The word “destroyed” is accurate because many different things were hung from pegs, and it was common that when a peg broke holding a clay jar, or a skin of wine or milk, the load was destroyed. “…the peg that was driven into a firm place will give way, be cut off, and fall, and the load on it will be destroyed” (Isa. Sadly, Eliakim was human, and eventually was not able to perform his duties, and even though he had once been a firm peg, he was broken off and what he supported was destroyed. All the glory of his family will hang on him: its offspring and offshoots-all its lesser vessels, from the bowls to all the jars” (Isa. “I will drive him like a peg into a firm place he will be a seat of honor for the house of his father. Shebna had been a disappointment, but God said that He would make Eliakim like a firm peg, so firm that all the glory of his family could hang from him. In Isaiah 22, God said He would remove Shebna, the steward in charge of Hezekiah’s palace, and replace him with Eliakim.
The expected answer was “No, they do not.” A peg made from the wood of a vine would break when something heavy was hung from it. God asked Ezekiel, “Is wood ever taken from it to make anything useful? Do they make pegs from it to hang things on?” (Ezek.
Wood from vines, for example, was not good for pegs, as we learn in Ezekiel. It was important that pegs for hanging things were made of good solid wood so that they would be sturdy and not break off. Even tents sometimes had pegs in the tent-poles, or at least some kind of hook tied to the tent poles so that clothes and other items could be kept in order and off the ground. An essential part of every biblical household were the pegs in the walls and posts from which things could be hung. “hang.” After speaking about love, Jesus said, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt.