CHAPTER III.

FOOD AND MEALS.

1. THE food of the ancient Hebrews was, in general, of the simplest description, and its preparation was no less simple. Articles most commonly found on the table were bread made from wheat or barley, fish, honey, milk, and a profusion of vegetables. The use of animal food, excluding fish, was rare with the common people. In the interesting description of the land of Canaan occurring in the book of Deuteronomy, it is said to be a "land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of oil olives and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it." Grain has always grown with great luxuriance in Palestine, as it still does throughout the whole of western Asia. A single stalk of wheat not infrequently produces more than a score of stems at once, each one terminating with a full ear. Grain began to be exported by the Israelites as early as the reign of Solomon.2

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2. PREPARATIONS OF GRAIN.-Grain, in its native state, was sometimes used as food. A marked example will be recalled in the life of our Lord, where the disciples were censured on one occasion by the Pharisees for plucking ears for this purpose on the Sabbath. More frequently the kernels were parched before they were eaten. We find "parched corn," that is, grain, referred to, along with fresh ears, as an article of food in the Mosaic period. It is one of the things, too, which Boaz, in the beautiful story of Ruth the Moabitess, is represented as providing for his workmen; and which the prudent Abigail sent to David and his men while tarrying in the wilderness of Parau. Then as now, it is likely, the parching was done over the fire by means of an iron pan, or in some similar way. The grain thus prepared, while still fresh and tender, was by no means an unpalatable dish. Another of the more simple preparations of grain for food was to soak or boil it slightly in water and then, after drying and crushing it, serve it up to be eaten much as is the dish called "groats" among ourselves."

1 Deut. 8:8, 9. 2 Ezek. 27:17. 8 Matt. 12: 1, 2; cf. 2 Kings 4:42. 4 Lev. 23: 14. 5 Ruth 2:14; 1 Sam. 17: 17; 25: 18; 2 Sam. 17: 28. 6 Num. 15: 20 (margin); Neh. 10:37; Ezek. 44: 30.

3. Ordinarily before being converted into food the kernel was more thoroughly ground. The contrivances for reducing it to meal were of the most rudimental kind. Originally a pestle and mortar were used, and long after other methods were resorted to this was retained along with them. In fact the pestle and mortar are still regarded as an almost indispensable part of the household appointments in the Orient. The first biblical notice we have of the mortar is in Numbers 11: 8, where the manna is said to have been pulverized by means of it. The commonness of its use in the time of the kings may be inferred from the sarcastic remark of the author of Proverbs 27: 22, that though one bray a fool in a mortar with a pestle among bruised corn, yet will not his foolishness depart from him."

Along with the mortar, "mills" are also spoken of as in use at an early date.' Doubtless the simple handmill is generally meant. It is extant in the Orient of to-day,

scarcely changed, if at all, and is known to the Arabs by its old Hebrew name. It consists of a couple of cylindrical stones, from one to two feet in diameter, and about six inches thick. Each stone has a separate name. The lower one is firmly planted on the ground and provided with a convex upper surface on which the concave under surface of the other stone revolves. The upper stone or "rider" has a hole through its centre into which the grain is dropped and through which also runs a shaft, or standard. By this standard the stone is held in its place. A handle attached to the rider near its outer rim enables a person sitting near to turn it around and grind the grain which is fed in with the hand that is free. If the stones be larger, two persons are required. Such service was usually assigned to women or servants. It was to women thus engaged that our Saviour referred when he said that of two women grinding at the mill one should be taken and one left.3

Eastern Handmill.

It was forbidden in the Mosaic law, for humane reasons, that the whole mill, or the upper millstone, should be taken in pledge, since it was taking "the life," that is, the means of sustaining life, in

1 Ex. 11:5.

2 Job 31:10; Isa. 47:2; Lam. 5:13.

pledge.1 As it was customary to bake nearly every day, every large family would be supplied with a mill of this sort; and nothing could have been more noticeable in an Oriental town than the noise caused by their constant use. Several allusions are made to this circumstance in the Bible. At a later period mills of a larger capacity, and worked by animals, came into use. It is to one of this sort that reference is made in Matthew 18: 6, where the Revised Version renders by a "great millstone" and still more literally in the margin, "a millstone turned by an ass." The very hardest material being selected for the lower stone, the "nether millstone" became a synonym for what was extremely hard. In Job, for example, it is said of the crocodile, "His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, firm as the nether millstone."

4. Bread was made principally from wheat flour. That which was made from barley was mostly used by the very poor, or in times of special need. The Bible in a number of passages clearly discriminates between the two kinds. Other materials than these were sometimes used in making bread; but it was generally from necessity rather than choice. The prophet Ezekiel, for example, was instructed, in token of extreme distress, "Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof." Millet is a species of grain of which broom corn is a variety. Its kernels are now often parched and eaten unground in the East. Spelt is also known as "German wheat," and is much used for food in Germany and Switzerland. There are two kinds of wheat flour recognized in the Old Testament, a coarser and a finer variety. They are distinguished by different names, and the latter was chiefly, though not exclusively, used in the meal offerings of the sanctuary. Both words are found together in Genesis 18: 6, where Sarah is bidden by her husband to prepare food for their unexpected guests. The patriarch says literally, "Be quick! Three seahs of flour, fine flour! Knead and make cakes!" On the other hand, it was the coarser sort that wasted not in the barrel of the widow of Zarephath.

Bread is also known in the Bible as leavened and unleavened. The latter was prescribed by law to the Hebrews for certain occasions, namely, when offered in connection with sacrifices made by fire, and for general use during the feast of the There are two different words used in the original Hebrew for leaven; one of

passover.

2 Eccles. 12:4; Jer. 25: 10; Matt. 6:11. 32 Kings 4:42; John 6:9, 13. os. 3:2; Rev. 6; 6, 5 Ezek. 4:9, 61 Kings 17: 14.

them being found in five passages only,' the other, in all the rest. The most common way of producing fermentation in flour or meal was to use a piece of dough which had itself been thoroughly leavened. When circumstances required it, bread and cakes were made without waiting to leaven or raise them. We find this fact mentioned occasionally as showing the haste of the meal. This was notably the case on the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and the passover loaf was its memorial. Metaphorical references to leaven are somewhat prominent in the Scriptures; and it is a singular fact that it is thought of in both a good and bad sense. Our Lord, for example, refers to it in one place to represent the mysterious, penetrating influence of Christian doctrine: where he speaks of the leaven which " a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened." In another passage he puts his disciples on their guard against "the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." This, too, was subtle and pervasive, but only for evil. It is quite a different view of the subject that is presented in the epistles of Paul. He thinks of leaven as producing decomposition, and hence as a most forcible image of the evil effects of sin.

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After kneading and raising the dough, the latter process sometimes requiring the entire night and being hastened by a gentle heat, it was usually divided for baking into round, flat pieces, about the width of the outstretched hand and the thickness of the finger. A comparison made by our Lord suggests the resemblance of these pieces to flat stones; and no doubt they were sometimes almost as hard as stone. Three of them, when baked, seem to have been required for the meal of one person." 9 They were sometimes indented and oil poured upon them previous to baking. They were then called by a different name. At other times, the dough was rolled out thin like wafers and received an outer coating of oil after it was baked." At still other times, its palatability was heightened by a second kneading and the addition of some ingredient now unknown, but possibly stimulating seeds.12 The dough was kneaded, it is likely, much as it now is in the East, by pressing it between the hands, or by passing it from one hand to the other. In Egypt, as the monuments show, it was put in baskets and trodden with the feet.

5. BAKING.-The most primitive method of baking was to place the prepared dough upon het coals, or underneath them, with a

slight covering of ashes. At other times, heated stones were employed, or a simple flat pan. A danger in the latter case, unless special care was exercised, was that the dough would be but partially baked. In allusion to this circumstance, the prophet Hosea says of Ephraim that he is "a cake not turned."1 Ovens were also used at an early period. They were of two kinds-the portable and the fixed. The former is the article usually referred to in the Bible when the oven is mentioned. It was little more than a large-sized clay pot, or jar, with an opening at the bottom for the fire and sometimes in the side for putting in the dough. A fire of twigs or dry grass was kindled under or within it, and when well heated, the articles to be baked were plastered on its sides. Nearly every family was provided with an oven of this kind. It was regarded, indeed, as a mark of misfortune for several (It is of clay; the lower opening is for the fire of families to be obliged to use the same

charcoal; over it is a floor of clay; on it the dough is placed, through the upper opening. On the top are "loaves" of bread, leaning against the rim, cooling.)

oven.2

The fixed oven, too, was often exceedingly rude in its construction. It might be nothing more than a hole in the ground, with its sides plastered or built up with stones. Possibly a flue at the bottom supplied a draft for the flame. A fire was kindled inside of it and kept burning until it became thoroughly heated. These methods of baking are still practiced by the nomads of the East; but in the towns public ovens are found, and the occupation of the baker is one of the best known. That this was equally true in ancient times appears from many texts of Scripture. At the present day the large town bakeries in the East. are provided with brick ovens, secured by iron doors much resembling those in use among ourselves. Among the curiosities revealed by the recent uncovering of ancient Pompeii are ovens of this sort. In one of them were found no less than eighty perfectly-formed loaves of bread. Figurative references to the oven or furnace are frequent in the Bible.*

The Hebrews seem generally to have eaten their bread warm, and it was not cut but broken. From this fact the expression "to break

1 Hos. 7: 8. 2 Lev. 26: 26. 3 Gen. 40:22; 1 Sam. 8:13; Jer. 37:21; Hos. 7:4. 21:9; Lam. 5:10; Mal. 4: 1.

4 Ps.