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Eating Customs

Washing the Hands

WASHING OF HANDS BEFORE EATING Orientals are careful to wash their hands before a meal, but they would think that the Occidental way of washing in the water already made dirty by the hands, to be very untidy and disgraceful. The servant or whoever takes his place, pours water on the hands to be washed as they are held over a basin. Often the basin...

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Eating Posture

POSITION WHILE EATING According to general Arabic custom, the seemly posture while eating is "to sit erect on the floor at the low table, with the legs either folded under the body, or thrown back as in, the act of kneeling. Thus in the desert tent of the Bedouin, or in the simple house of the Fellahin, this would be the position of those eating a...

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Tables

Table. In many cases the Arab custom would seem to indicate to the Westerner that they use no table at all when serving a meal. Actually, a mat spread upon the ground serves the purpose of a table. This is especially true of the tent Arab. This was the early Semitic table of Old Testament times, for the Hebrew word "Shool-khawn," usually translated...

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Chairs

Chairs. With such an Oriental table in general use, it would follow that Occidental chairs would be largely missing. In regard to making use of chairs in ancient Bible days it has been said: "On ordinary occasions they probably sat or squatted on the floor around a low table, while at meals of more ceremony they sat on chairs or stools. The scriptu...

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Dishes

Dishes. At an Oriental meal the only dishes are those in which the food is placed on the table; there are no dishes given to each one having a part in the meal. Often there is only one dish for the food, and it is usually a tray of basketwork, or a copper dish. JESUS spoke of His betrayer as "he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish" (Matthew 2...

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