one woman will continue keeping three or four cakes in the oven at once, till she has done baking. This mode, he adds, requires not half the fuel that is consumed in Europe." In this way Tamer seems to have prepared the cakes for her brother Amnon: "She took flour and made dough, and kneaded it into a proper consistence, (vattilabbeb) and tossed it about in her hand; (vathebashel) and dressed or baked the cakes in his sight." Nor should it appear strange that a king's daughter, in the reign of David, was employed in this menial service; for Dr. Russel says, the eastern ladies often prepare cakes and other things in their own apartments; and some few particular dishes are cooked by themselves, but not in their apartments: on such occasions they go to some room near the kitchen. The eastern bread is made in small, thin, moist cakes it must be eaten new, and is unfit for use when kept longer than a day. Both Russel and Rauwolff, however, mention several kinds of bread and cakes; some which are done with yolks of eggs; some which are mixed with coriander and other seeds; and some which are strewed with them; and Pitts describes a kind of biscuits, which the Mahometan pilgrims carry from Egypt to Mecca, and back again, perfectly fresh and good. The holy Scriptures accord with the narratives of modern travellers, in representing the oriental loaves as very small, three of them being required for the repast of a single person: "Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, friend, lend me three loaves: for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him ?"* It appears also from the history of Abraham, and particularly from his entertaining the three angels, that they were generally eaten new, and baked as they were needed. Sometimes, however, they were made to keep several days; for the shew-bread might be eaten after it had stood a week before the Lord. The pretence of the Gibeonites, that their bread had become mouldy from the length of the road, although it * Luke xi. 5, 6. was taken fresh from the oven when they left home, proves, that bread for a journey was made to keep a considerable time. In every one of these minute circumstances, the sacred volume perfectly corresponds with the statements of modern travellers. One species of bread used in ancient Palestine, bears the name of nekoudim, in the history of the kings, about the meaning of which, some diversity of opinion prevails. The word occurs in the instructions which Jeroboam gave to his wife, and is rendered cracknels in our translation: "And Jeroboam said to his wife,take with thee ten loaves, and (□) cracknels, and a cruise of honey, and go to him; he shall tell thee what shall become of the child." Buxtorf supposes, that the original term signifies biscuits, either because they were formed into little buttons, or because they were pricked full of holes in a particular manner. The last idea was adopted by our translators; for cracknels are a sort of bread which is full of holes, and formed into a flourish of lattice work. But the word is derived from a participle, which no where signifies pierced with holes, or formed into net work, but spotted or speckled. It is accordingly used by Moses, to signify those cattle in the flocks of Laban, which were marked with spots.* In the book of Joshua, it denotes those mouldy spots on the bread of the Gibeonites, which they pretended the length of their journey had occasioned.† In the feminine gender, it denotes studs or spots of silver; and is rendered in the Septuagint, syuara; and by the Vulgate, vermiculatas, inlaid.‡ The idea of Mr. Harmer is, therefore, to be preferred, that it denotes cakes or loaves strewed, and by consequence spotted with coriander and other seeds; a sort of bread which is still quite common in Syria, and many other countries of the east. In primitive times, an oven was designed only to serve a single family, and to bake for them no more than the bread of one day; a custom which still continues in some places of the east; but the increase of population in the cities, higher degrees of refinement, or other causes in the progress of time, suggested the † Josh. ix. 12. + Song i. 11. * Gen. xxxiii. 32, 33. establishment of public bakehouses. They seem to have been introduced into Judea long before the captivity; for the prophet Jeremiah speaks of "the baker's street," in the most familiar manner, as a place well known.* This, however, might be only a temporary establishment, to supply the wants of the soldiers assembled from other places, to defend Jerusalem. If they received a daily allowance of bread, as is the practice still in some eastern countries, from the royal bakehouses, the order of the king to give the prophet daily a piece of bread, out of the street where they were erected, in the same manner as the defenders of the city, was perfectly natural. The custom alluded to, still maintains its ground at Algiers, where the unmarried soldiers receive every day from the public bakehouses, a certain number of loaves.† Pitts indeed asserts, that the Algerines have public bakehouses for the accommodation of the whole city. The women prepare their dough at home, and the bakers send their boys about the streets, to give notice of their being ready to receive and carry it to the bakehouses. They bake their cakes every day, or every other day, and give the boy who brings the bread home, a piece or little cake for the baking, which is sold by the baker. Small as the eastern loaves are, it appears from this account, that they give a piece of one only to the baker, as a reward for i trouble. This will perhaps illustrate Ezekiel's account of the false prophets, receiving pieces of bread by way of gratuities: "And will ye pollute me among my people, for handfuls of barley, and pieces of bread?" These are compensations still used in the east, but of the meanest kind, and for services of the lowest sort. They have other ways of preparing their corn for food, besides making it into bread. Burgle is very commonly used among the Christians of Aleppo; which is wheat boiled, then bruised in a mill so as to separate it from the husk, after which it is dried, and laid up for The drying of burgle, though mentioned by some writers as a modern operation, seems to throw light use. upon a remarkable passage in the history of David; the concealment of his two spies in a well whose mouth was covered with corn. The custom of exposing corn in this way, must have been very common in Judea, else it had rather excited suspicion in the minds of the pursuers, than diverted their attention from the spot where the spies were concealed. That the well's mouth was covered on that occasion with burgle or boiled wheat, is exceedingly probable; for Dr. Russel observes, that in preparing it after it has been softened in warm water, it is commonly laid out in the court-yard to dry. It could not be flour or meal; for they grind it only in small quantities, and as they want it, and never are known to expose it in this manner. Bishop Patrick supposes it was corn newly thrashed out, she pretended to dry; but if this was practised at all, of which we have no evidence, it was by no means common, and therefore calculated rather to betray, than to conceal the spies. Besides, the same word is used to signify corn beaten in a mortar with a pestle,* not on the barn floor with a thrashing instrument; now burgle is actually pounded in this manner. It was therefore burgle or boiled wheat, which d'Arvieux expressly says is dried in the sun; adding, that they prepare a whole year's provision of it at once. This is the reason that neither the exposure of the corn, nor the large quantity, produced the least suspicion; every circumstance accorded with the public usage of the country, and by consequence, the preparation of this species of food is as ancient as the days of David.† Sawick is a different preparation, and consists of corn parched in the ear; it is made, as well of barley and rice, as of wheat. It is never called in the inspired volume, parched flour or meal, but always parched corn; and by consequence, seems to remain after the roasting, and to be eaten in the state of corn. In confirmation of this idea, we may quote a fact stated by Hasselquist, that in journeying from Acre to Sidon, he saw a shepherd eating his dinner, consisting of half ripe ears of wheat roasted, which he eat, says the traveller, with as good an appetite as a Turk does his pillaw. + See Harmer's Obs. vol. 1. p. 468, Prov, xxvii. 22. The same kind of food, he says, is much used in Egypt by the poor; they roast the ears of Turkish wheat or millet; but it is in his account far inferior to bread. Dr. Shaw is of a different opinion; he supposes the kali, or parched corn of the Scriptures, which he translates parched pulse, means parched cicers. But we frequently read in Scripture of dried or parched corn; and the word used in those passages, is most naturally to be understood of corn, and not of pulse. Besides, Rauwolff asserts that cicers are used in the east only as a part of the desert after their meals. But it cannot be reasonably supposed, that Boaz would entertain his reapers with things of this kind; or that those fruits which in modern times are used only in deserts, formed the principal part of a reaper's meal, in the field of so wealthy a proprietor. This, however, the opinion of Dr. Shaw requires to be supposed; for it is said in the inspired record, "He reached Ruth parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left."* Nor can it well be supposed, that a trifling article in a desert would have been thought of so much importance by an inspired writer, as to obtain a prominent place in his account of the provisions with which the armies of Israel were supplied, immediately after crossing the Jordan: "And they did eat of the old corn of the land, on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched cicers (corn) in the self same day."+ Would an inspired writer say, as if he had been recording some very important matter, that the manna ceased after they had enjoyed a desert of cicers? If not, the word kali must refer, not to cicers or any other pulse, but to parched corn, as it is properly rendered in our translation, an article of great importance in the daily sustenance of that people. The justice of these remarks is fully verified by the list of provisions which the nobles of Israel, on the other side of Jordan, sent to David, when he fled before his son' Absalom, in which parched corn and parched pulse are mentioned in different parts of the statement, and as distinct articles: "They brought wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and * Ruth ii. 14. + Josh. v. 11. |