Irrigation

Irrigation — the artificial watering of land — was a fundamental technology of ancient agriculture in the Near East, particularly in Egypt and Mesopotamia where it was essential to cultivation. The contrast between Egypt's irrigation-dependent agriculture and Canaan's rain-dependent farming is explicit in Deuteronomy 11:10–12: "the land where you are entering to possess it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you used to sow your seed and water it with your foot like a vegetable garden. But the land into which you are about to cross to possess it... drinks water from the rain of heaven." Watering "with your foot" likely refers to directing water channels with the foot, operating sluice gates, or working treadle-operated irrigation devices.

In Canaan, water was obtained primarily through rainfall, springs, cisterns, and seasonal wadis rather than large-scale canal systems. However, local irrigation was practiced where springs permitted — Jericho's lush cultivation depended on the Elisha spring, and Solomon's gardens (Ecclesiastes 2:6) involved irrigation pools. The image of a well-watered garden as an emblem of divine blessing runs throughout the Old Testament (Isaiah 58:11; Jeremiah 31:12), while drought and unwatered land symbolize divine judgment.