food Summary and Overview

Originally the Creator granted the use of the vegetable world for food to man (Gen. 1:29), with the exception mentioned (2:17). The use of animal food was probably not unknown to the antediluvians. There is, however, a distinct law on the subject given to Noah after the Deluge (Gen. 9:2-5). Various articles of food used in the patriarchal age are mentioned in Gen. 18:6-8; 25:34; 27:3, 4; 43:11. Regarding the food of the Israelites in Egypt, see Ex. 16:3; Num. 11:5. In the wilderness their ordinary food was miraculously supplied in the manna. They had also quails (Ex. 16:11-13; Num. 11:31). In the law of Moses there are special regulations as to the animals to be used for food (Lev. 11; Deut. 14:3-21). The Jews were also forbidden to use as food anything that had been consecrated to idols (Ex. 34:15), or animals that had died of disease or had been torn by wild beasts (Ex. 22:31; Lev. 22:8). (See also for other restrictions Ex. 23:19; 29:13-22; Lev. 3:4-9; 9:18, 19; 22:8; Deut. 14:21.) But beyond these restrictions they had a large grant from God (Deut. 14:26; 32:13, 14). Food was prepared for use in various ways. The cereals were sometimes eaten without any preparation (Lev. 23:14; Deut. 23:25; 2 Kings 4:42). Vegetables were cooked by boiling (Gen. 25:30, 34; 2 Kings 4:38, 39), and thus also other articles of food were prepared for use (Gen. 27:4; Prov. 23:3; Ezek. 24:10; Luke 24:42; John 21:9). Food was also prepared by roasting (Ex. 12:8; Lev. 2:14). (See COOK T0000892.)

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, #Joh 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;" #Ge 18:8; Jud 5:25; 2Sa 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. #Nu 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 regulations of the Mosaic law in ancient, as of the Koran in modern, times have tended to the same result. The prohibition expressed against consuming the blood of any animal, #Ge 9:4| was more fully developed in the Levitical law, and enforced by the penalty of death. #Le 3:17; 7:26; 19:26; De 12:16| Certain portions of the fat of sacrifices were also forbidden, #Le 3:9,10| as being set apart for the altar, #Le 3:16; 7:25| In addition to the above, Christians were forbidden to eat the flesh of animals portions of which had been offered to idols. All beasts and birds classed as unclean, #Le 11:1| ff.; Deut 14:4 ff., were also prohibited. Under these restrictions the Hebrews were permitted the free use of animal food: generally speaking they only availed themselves of it in the exercise of hospitality or at festivals of a religious, public or private character. It was only in royal households that there was a daily consumption of meat. The animals killed for meat were --calves, lambs, oxen not above three years of age, harts, roebucks and fallow deer; birds of various kinds; fish, with the exception of such as were without scales and fins. Locusts, of which certain species only were esteemed clean, were occasionally eaten, #Mt 3:4| but were regarded as poor fare.

FOOD . Gen 3:6. We may form some judgment of the ancient diet from what we know of that of the modern Orientals. Vegetable food is much more common than animal. Instead of butter, lard, and suet, they use olive oil. A soup, or rather pottage, of beans and lentiles, seasoned with garlic and oil, is still, as it was of old, a favorite dish. The "red pottage of lentiles" for which Esau sold his birthright was something of this kind. Eggs, honey, milk (especially sour milk), and garden productions of every kind afford the principal materials of Eastern diet. The most common dish at this day in the East is the pilan, which consists of rice cooked with meat so as to make a sort of broth, seasoned variously and colored blue, red, or yellow. We do not find the use of animal food often occurring, except upon the occasion of entertainments, or the exhibition of hospitality to a friend, Gen 18:7; Luke 15:23, or upon the tables of the rich. The animals used for this purpose, especially neat cattle, were often "stalled" and "fattened." 1 Sam 16:20; 1 Sam 28:24; 1 Kgs 4:23; Neh 5:18; Isa 1:11; Isa 11:6; Jer 46:21; Eze 39:18; Am 6:4; Mal 4:2. Wild game, lambs, and kids constituted the favorite viands in the East. At this day beef is not much used, though from some texts above and other similar authorities we learn that the flesh of young bullocks and stall-fed oxen was highly prized. Prov 15:17; Matt 22:4. In very ancient times it was always the master of the house, whether he were rich or poor, who slew the animal. Jud 6:19. Grecian and Roman writers mention a like custom of later times. The preparation of the food by cooking was the business of the mistress. The shoulder was probably the choicest part. 1 Sam 9:24. It is customary for the Arabs to serve up at one meal the whole of any animal which they have killed. This is occasioned in some measure by the difficulty of preserving fresh meat in the Eastern climate. Gen 18:7:Luke 15:23. The people of the East are particularly fond of fish, and in Egypt this constitutes a very important part of their subsistence. Num 11:5. See Fish.

Herbs and fruits were man's permitted food at first (Genesis 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 (Genesis 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" (Genesis 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" (Leviticus 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 (Acts 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 (Acts 15:29; Acts 21:25; Acts 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 (Numbers 25:2; Psalm 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 (Genesis 18:7; Genesis 43:16; Exodus 16:3; Numbers 11:4-5; 1 Kings 1:9; 1 Kings 4:23; Matthew 22:4). Their ordinary diet contained a larger proportion of farinaceous and leguminous foods, with honey, butter, and cheese, than of animal (2 Samuel 17:28-29). Still an entirely vegetable diet was deemed a poor one (Proverbs 15:17; Daniel 1:12). Some kinds of locusts were eaten by the poor, and formed part of John the Baptist's simple diet (Matthew 3:4; Leviticus 11:22). Condiments, as salt, mustard, anise, rue, cummin, almonds, were much used (Isaiah 28:25, etc.; Matthew 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 Genesis 43:11; Ezekiel 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 (Leviticus 2:14; Leviticus 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" (John 13:26, etc.). Pressed dry grape cakes and fig cakes were an article of ordinary consumption. (See FLAGON.) (1 Samuel 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 (Exodus 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; Isaiah 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 (1 Chronicles 12:40). The prohibition "thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk" (Exodus 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 Deuteronomy 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 Leviticus 22:28; Deuteronomy 22:6. Arabs still cook lamb in sour milk to improve the flavor. Kid was a favorite food (Genesis 27:9; Genesis 27:14; Judges 6:19; Judges 13:15; 1 Samuel 16:20). Fish was the usual food in our Lord's time about the sea of Galilee (Matthew 7:10; John 6:9; John 21:9, etc.).