cummin Summary and Overview

(Heb. kammon; i.e., a "condiment"), the fruit or seed of an umbelliferous plant, the Cuminum sativum, still extensively cultivated in the East. Its fruit is mentioned in Isa. 28:25, 27. In the New Testament it is mentioned in Matt. 23:23, where our Lord pronounces a "woe" on the scribes and Pharisees, who were zealous in paying tithes of "mint and anise and cummin," while they omitted the weightier matters of the law." "It is used as a spice, both bruised, to mix with bread, and also boiled, in the various messes and stews which compose an Oriental banquet." Tristram, Natural History.

one of the cultivated plants of Israel. #Isa 28:25,27; Mt 23:23| It is an umbelliferous plant something like fennel. The seeds have a bitterish warm taste and an aromatic flavor. The Maltese are said to grow it at the present day, and to thresh it in the manner described by Isaiah.

CUM'MIN . Matt 23:23. A low herb (Cuminum sativum) of the fennel kind, which produces aromatic seeds and is found in Syria. In Isa 28:25, Gen 1:27 reference is made to the manner of sowing and threshing it. The same method is observed in Malta at this day. It was one of the things of less consequence which the Pharisees strictly tithed. See Mint. CUN'NING is used in the Bible in its original sense of "knowing," "skilful." Gen 25:27; 1 Sam 16:16, etc. In 2 Pet 1:16 the word "cunningly" is used in a similar sense.

An umbelliferous plant like fennel, with aromatic, pungent, carminative seeds; beaten out with a rod, not threshed (Isaiah 28:25; Isaiah 28:27); tithed by the punctilious Pharisees (Matthew 23:23). "Cummin splitting" was a Greek adage for cheese-paring parsimony (Aristophanes, Wasps). Grown still in Malta.