Pillow

A pillow in scripture is the head-piece of a bed or a sleeping-place — a cushion, a bolster, or, on the road, whatever stone is to hand. Most of the named scenes are about what is placed at a sleeper's head: a stone Jacob puts under his head at Bethel, a goats'-hair pillow Michal arranges in David's bed to fool the morning arrest-party, a spear stuck at Saul's head while he sleeps in the wagon-camp, the cushion in the stern on which Jesus is asleep when the storm breaks. Ezekiel's oracle against the false prophetesses names a different object under the same English word in older translations — bands sewn onto the wrists for soul-hunting, which Yahweh announces he will tear away.

Stones used as a head-piece

The earliest pillow-scene is improvised from the road. Jacob, benighted on his way to Paddan-aram, "came upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set. And he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep" (Gen 28:11). The stone is what is to hand and it is what goes under the head. The next morning the same stone is recovered and repurposed: "Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it" (Gen 28:18). The object that served the sleeper as a head-prop is then erected as a memorial of what happened in the sleep.

The head-piece in the bed: Michal's decoy

When Saul's messengers come to seize David from his house, Michal stages an empty bed that reads as a sleeping man. "Michal took the talismans, and laid them in the bed, and put a pillow of goats' [hair] at his head, and used a blanket as a covering" (1 Sam 19:13). The pillow of goats' hair is the head-piece — placed where David's head would lie — and it is the head-piece that sells the decoy to the messengers when they are admitted: "when the messengers came in, look, the talismans were in the bed, with the pillow of goats' [hair] at his head" (1 Sam 19:16). The pillow is a piece of bedroom furniture used to project the shape of an absent man.

"At his head": the bolster sense in 1 Samuel 26

Across to Saul's pursuit of David in the wilderness, the same head-piece register names not a cushion but the spear and water-cruse that lie next to the king's head while he sleeps in the wagon-camp. "Saul lay sleeping inside the place of the wagons, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the people lay round about him" (1 Sam 26:7). David refuses to strike Saul, and the head-piece is what he takes instead: "take, I pray you, the spear that is at his head, and the cruse of water, and let us go" (1 Sam 26:11). "So David took the spear and the cruse of water from Saul's head; and they got away" (1 Sam 26:12). When David crosses to the far hill and rebukes Abner, he reaches for the same locator: "see where the king's spear is, and the cruse of water that was at his head" (1 Sam 26:16). The "at his head" phrase repeats four times across the chapter and fixes the bolster-place — what the sleeper has set within reach for the night — as the proof that David came and went without harm.

The cushion in the stern

The Mark scene names the head-piece on the boat. As the storm breaks across the sea, "he himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion: and they wake him, and say to him, Teacher, don't you care that we perish?" (Mark 4:38). The cushion is the named piece of boat-furniture. The detail fixes the place and posture — "in the stern, asleep on the cushion" — at the moment of contrast, while the disciples panic on the deck.

Bands of soul-hunting in Ezekiel

The same vocabulary then turns to a different object in Ezekiel's oracle against the prophetesses. "Thus says the Sovereign Yahweh: Woe to the women who sew bands on the wrists, and make headscarves for [persons of] every stature to hunt souls! Will you⁺ hunt the souls of my people, and save souls alive for yourselves?" (Ezek 13:18). These are not pillows but bands — magical armbands sewn onto the wrists, paired with headscarves to ensnare souls. The sewing verb links them to the pillow-scenes above, but the object is not a cushion. Yahweh's response targets the bands: "Look, I am against your⁺ bands, with which you⁺ there hunt the souls to make [them] fly, and I will tear them from your⁺ arms; and I will let the souls go, even the souls who you⁺ hunt to make [them] fly" (Ezek 13:20). The tearing-off is reciprocal — the same on-the-arm fastening Yahweh saw is the fastening he undoes — and the souls the bands held are released.

The named object across the scenes

A pillow in these scenes is whatever holds the head or the place beside the head: a stone on the open road, a goats'-hair head-piece in a bed, a spear stuck at a sleeper's head in a camp, a cushion in the stern of a boat. The Ezekiel passage names a different object — bands sewn for trapping — and the same English word "pillow" in older translations obscures the distinction. The scriptures name each object specifically, and the Ezekiel bands belong to the domain of sorcery, not sleep.