Food
Herbs and fruits were man's permitted food at first (Gen 1:29). The early race lived in a warm and genial climate, where animal food was not a necessity. Even now many eastern nations live healthily on a vegetable diet. Not until after the flood (Gen 9:3) sheep and cattle, previously kept for their milk and wool, and for slaying in sacrifice, from whence the distinction of "clean and unclean" (Gen 7:2) is noticed before the flood, were permitted to be eaten.
(See ABEL) The godless and violent antediluvians probably had anticipated this permission. Now it is given accompanied by a prohibition against eating flesh with the blood, which is the life, left in it.
The cutting of flesh, with the blood, from the living animal (as has been practiced in Africa), and the eating of blood either apart from or in the flesh, were prohibited, because "the soul (nephesh) of the flesh is in the blood, and I (Jehovah) have ordained it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood which makes atonement by means of the soul" (Lev 17:11-12).
The two grounds for forbidding blood as food thus are, firstly, its being the vital fluid; secondly, its significant use in sacrifice. The slaughtering was to be (1) as expeditious as possible, (2) with the least possible infliction of suffering, and (3) causing the blood to flow out in the quickest and most complete manner.
Harvey says:" the blood is the fountain of life, the first to live, the last to die, and the primary seat of the animal soul; it lives and is nourished of itself, and by no other part of the human body." John Hunter inferred it is the seat of life, for all parts of the frame are formed and nourished from it.
Milne Edwards says: "if an animal be bled until it falls into syncope, muscular action ceases, respiration and the heart's action are suspended; but if the blood of an animal of the same kind be injected into the veins the inanimate body returns to life, breathes freely, and recovers completely" (Speaker's Commentary, Leviticus 17, note).
In the first Christian churches, where Jew and Gentile were united, in order to avoid offending Jewish prejudice in things indifferent the council at Jerusalem (Act 15:29) ordained abstinence "from things strangled (wherein the blood would remain), and from blood." Moreover, the pagan consumed blood in their sacrifices, in contrast to Jehovah's law, which would make His people the more shrink from any seeing conformity to their ways.
Fat when unmixed with lean was also forbidden food, being consecrated to Him. (See FAT) Christians were directed to abstain also from animal flesh of which a part had been offered to idols (Act 15:29; Act 21:25; Act 21:1 Corinthians 8). The portions of the victim not offered on the altar belonged partly to the priests, and partly to the offerers.
They were eaten at feasts, not only in the temples but also in private houses, and were often sold in the markets, so that the temptation to Christians was continually recurring (Num 25:2; Psa 106:28). The food of the Israelites and Egyptians was more of a vegetable than animal kind. Flesh meat was brought forth on special occasions, as sacrificial and hospitable feasts (Gen 18:7; Gen 43:16; Exo 16:3; Num 11:4-5; 1Ki 1:9; 1Ki 4:23; Mat 22:4).
Their ordinary diet contained a larger proportion of farinaceous and leguminous foods, with honey, butter, and cheese, than of animal (2Sa 17:28-29). Still an entirely vegetable diet was deemed a poor one (Pro 15:17; Dan 1:12). Some kinds of locusts were eaten by the poor, and formed part of John the Baptist's simple diet (Mat 3:4; Lev 11:22). Condiments, as salt, mustard, anise, rue, cummin, almonds, were much used (Isa 28:25, etc.; Mat 23:23).
The killing of a calf or sheep for a guest is as simple and expeditions in Modern Syria as it was in Abraham's days. Bread, dibs (thickened grape juice) (possibly meant in Gen 43:11; Eze 27:17, honey dibash), coagulated sour milk, leban, butter, rice, and a little mutton, are the food in winter; cheese and fruits are added in summer. The meat is cut up in little bits, and the company eat it without knives and forks out of basohs.
Parched grain, roasted in a pan over the fire, was an ordinary diet, of laborers (Lev 2:14; Lev 23:14; Rth 2:14). Sour wine ("vinegar") was used to dip the bread in; or else the gravy, broth, or melted fat of flesh meat; this illustrates the "dipping the sop in the common dish" (Joh 13:26, etc.) Pressed dry grape cakes and fig cakes were an article of ordinary consumption. (See FLAGON) (1Sa 30:12). Fruit cake dissolved in water affords a refreshing drink.
Lettuces of a wild kind, according to Septuagint, were the "bitter herbs" eaten with the Passover lamb (Exo 12:8). Retem, or "bitter root of the broom", was eaten by the poor. Job 30:4, "juniper," rather "broom"; Job 6:6, for "egg" Gesenius translated "an insipid potherb," possibly purslane. "Butter (curdled milk, the acid of which is grateful in the hot East) and honey" are more fluid in the East than with us, and are poured out of jars. Job 20:17, "brooks of honey and butter."
These were the ordinary food of children; Isa 7:15, so of the prophet's child who typified Immanuel; the distress caused by the Syrian and Israelite kings not preventing the supply of spontaneously produced foods, the only abundant articles of diet then. Oil was chiefly used on festive occasions (1Ch 12:40).
The prohibition "thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk" (Exo 23:19) is thought by Abarbauel to forbid a pagan harvest superstition designed to propitiate the gods; to which a Karaite Jew, quoted by Cudworth (Speaker's Commentary), adds, it was usual when the crops were gathered in to sprinkle the fruit trees, fields, and gardens as a charm.
In Exodus the previous context referring to Passover and Pentecost favors this reference to a usage at the feast of tabernacles or ingathering of fruits.
In Deu 14:21 the context suggests an additional reason for the prohibition, namely, that Israel as being "holy unto the Lord" should not eat any food inconsistent with that consecration, for instance what "dieth of itself," or a kid cooked in its mother's milk, as indicating contempt of the natural relation which God sanctified between parent and offspring. Compare the same principle Lev 22:28; Deu 22:6. Arabs still cook lamb in sour milk to improve the flavor.
Kid was a favorite food (Gen 27:9; Gen 27:14; Jdg 6:19; Jdg 13:15; 1Sa 16:20). Fish was the usual food in our Lord's time about the sea of Galilee (Mat 7:10; Joh 6:9; Joh 21:9, etc.)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia on Food
Food food: I. VEGETABLE FOODS 1. Primitive Habits 2. Cereals 3. Leguminous Plants 4. Food of Trees II. ANIMAL FOOD LITERATURE In a previous article (see BREAD) it has been shown that in the Bible "bread" usually stands for food in general and how this came to be so. In a complementary article on MEALS the methods of preparing and serving food will be dealt with. This article is devoted specifically to the foodstuffs of the Orient, more especially to articles of food in use among the Hebrews in Bible times. These are divisible into two main classes. ⇒See a list of verses on FOOD in the Bible. I. Vegetable Foods. 1. Primitive Habits: ⇒See the definition of food in the KJV Dictionary Orientals in general are vegetarians, rather than flesh eaters. There is some reason to believe that primitive man was a vegetarian (see Ge 2:16; 3:2,6). It would seem, indeed, from a comparison of Ge 1:29 f with Ge 9:3 f that Divine permission to eat the flesh of animals was first given to Noah after the Deluge, and then only on condition of drawing off the blood in a prescribed way (compare the kosher (ka…
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible on Food
I. The material eaten for the sustenance of the body is often mentioned in the Bible, in AV most commonly as bread, but often as meat, occasionally as food or victuals. Sjk3 ma'akhrd, or victual in general, is used about 29 times, always in its literal sense ; unh lehem, literally bread, is used for food in general about 230 times, and is often used figuratively (see Bread). "?;." y are said to smell foully of garlic ; and Salomon Levi defends their taste lE Theriac. Jud. i. § 20. In Egypt this plant was, and is still, much used (Herod, ii. 125 ; Wilkinson, i. 169 ; Lane, i. 257). Garlic was supposed to have the power of neutralizing the poison of the asp, and its use by penitent criminals was believed to purify them and absolve them of guilt. In Maaser sheni, v. § 8, garlic is called the ' Lord of tears.' At the present day it is much prized in the East as a remedy for many ailments and as an antidote for many poisons ; Pliny enumerates 61 ways in which it was recommended medicinally, and "Prudentius speaks of an altar to the garlic as being erected at Pelusium. The Egyptians called…
Smith's Bible Dictionary on Food
The diet of eastern nations has been in all ages light and simple. Vegetable food was more used than animal. The Hebrews used a great variety of articles, (John 21:5) to give a relish to bread. Milk and its preparations hold a conspicuous place in eastern diet, as affording substantial nourishment; generally int he form of the modern leben, i.e. sour milk. Authorized Version “butter;” (Genesis 18:8; Judges 5:25; 2 Samuel 17:29) Fruit was another source of subsistence: figs stood first in point of importance; they were generally dried and pressed into cakes. Grapes were generally eaten in a dried state as raisins. Of vegetables we have most frequent notice of lentils, beans, leeks, onions and garlic, which were and still are of a superior quality in Egypt. (Numbers 11:5) Honey is extensively used, as is also olive oil. The Orientals have been at all times sparing in the use of animal food; not only does the extensive head of the climate render it both unwholesome to eat much meat and expensive from the necessity of immediately consuming a whole animal, but beyond this the ritual regul…
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- Easton, M.G. (1893) Easton's Bible Dictionary. 3rd edn. Thomas Nelson. [Public Domain]
- Nave, O.J. (1897) Nave's Topical Bible. Topical Bible Publishing Co.. [Public Domain]
- Hastings, J. (ed.) (1909) A Dictionary of the Bible. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. [Public Domain]
- Smith, W. (ed.) (1884) Smith's Bible Dictionary. London: John Murray. [Public Domain]
- Fausset, A.R. (1878) Fausset's Bible Dictionary. [Public Domain]A Critical and Expository Bible Cyclopaedia