cheese Summary and Overview

(A.S. cese). This word occurs three times in the Authorized Version as the translation of three different Hebrew words: (1.) 1 Sam. 17:18, "ten cheeses;" i.e., ten sections of curd. (2.) 2 Sam. 17:29, "cheese of kine" = perhaps curdled milk of kine. The Vulgate version reads "fat calves." (3.) Job 10:10, curdled milk is meant by the word.

is mentioned only three times in the Bible, and on each occasion under a different name in the Hebrew. #1Sa 17:18; 2Sa 17:29; Job 10:10| It is difficult to decide how far these terms correspond with our notion of cheese, for they simply express various degrees of coagulation. Cheese is not at the present day common among the Bedouin Arabs, butter being decidedly preferred; but there is a substance closely corresponding to those mentioned in 1Sam 17, 2Sam 17, consisting of coagulated buttermilk, which is dried until it become quite hard, and is then ground; the Arabs eat it mixed with butter.

Job 10:10; 1 Samuel 17:18; 2 Samuel 17:29. The modern Arabs use either butter, or coagulated buttermilk dried so as to be hard. Our "butter" means in derivation "cheese of kine." In ancient Israel probably by "cheese" is meant milk compressed in cakes, salted, soft when new, but soon becoming hard and dry.