millet

To illustrate the siege of Jerusalem, Ezekiel is instructed to make a loaf of bread out of wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet (dochan in Hebrew), and spelt in Ezekiel 4:9. In Arabic millet is called dukhn or dochna, suggesting that the Hebrew word dochan could indeed be millet. Some scholars believe that Millet Panicum miliaceum or Panicum callosum was first domesticated in Ethiopia, but others say in India or the East Indies. From one of those places it was carried into Mesopotamia around 3000 B.C. If that is so, it may have been known to the people of Israel during their stay in Egypt as well as after the conquest of Canaan. In Ezekiel 27:17 a reference is made to pannag, which Moldenke (Plants of the Bible. Chronica Botanica. Ronald Press, 1952) takes as possibly referring to millet, on the basis of the fact that in Syriac pannag refers to millet. However, Hepper (Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Plants: Flowers and Trees, Fruits and Vegetables, Ecology. Baker Book House, 1992) says that neither millet nor sorghum reached the Mediterranean area before the Christian era, making it unlikely that dochan or pannag refer to either millet or sorghum.

Today millet is used throughout the world for porridge, alcoholic beverages, and as animal food. It is not good for bread, which may be significant in the incident mentioned in Ezekiel 4:9.

If indeed millet was grown at all in Old Testament times, it would have been a short variety less than 1 meter (3 feet) in height. It has a single head on a stalk, with many tiny seeds, so the Latin name is miliaceum (“million seeds”).

There are six hundred kinds of Panicum species growing in the warm and tropical zones of the world, many of them domesticated, and two in Europe. Translators who do not have a local word for millet will need to use a transliteration from a major language, for example, French millet, Portuguese miliyo, and Spanish mijo. Since the references to millet are part of lists in non-rhetorical contexts, there is no need to look for a cultural equivalent.

Panicum miliaceum, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

beans

Commentators and translators are unanimous in identifying the Hebrew word pol as the Broad Bean Vicia faba or Faba vulgaris. Beans were cultivated in the Middle East for millennia, and they probably originated there. No wild species are now known, and it is quite possible that the ancestors of the bean are extinct. Samples of beans have been found in excavations at Jericho dating to 7,000 8,000 years ago.

The broad bean is an erect plant, not a vine, reaching to 1 meter (3 feet) in height. The stem branches only in the upper part. It has no tendrils like many types of bean have today. The flowers are white, and when they ripen, they form pods containing 3-6 large flat beans of a cream or tan color.

Special significance  In 2 Samuel 17:28 people bring food, including beans, to King David as he flees from his son Absalom. In Ezekiel 4:9 Ezekiel is instructed to publicly make “bread” out of wheat, barley, beans, and lentils — whatever he could find — the point probably being that good quality bread will soon be scarce in Jerusalem.

There are at least two hundred species of the genus Vicia to which the broad bean belongs. Vicia itself is part of the vast family of legumes. It is possible that the Hebrew word pol actually refers to more than one type of bean, including what we now know as peas. Since beans and peas are known around the world, translators will probably be able to find a local equivalent. In both contexts (2 Samuel and Ezekiel) the word is used in a list of items, and if a local species of bean is not available to the translator, a transliteration should be used.

Vicia faba, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

lentils

Scholars are agreed that the Hebrew word ‘adashah refers to the lentil Lens culinaris (formerly known as Lens esculenta). The Arabic word ‘adas, as well as several references in post-biblical Hebrew, confirm this identification, as does the Greek Septuagint. Seeds found in excavations dating to the sixth or seventh millennium B.C. show that the lentil is one of the first species to be cultivated by humans. In those excavations lentils are often found together with seeds of wheat and barley.

The lentil is a low-branched plant with a weak stem. It has tendrils, like pumpkins and squashes, and pinkish flowers that develop into a pod like a bean. The pod is very short with only one seed inside, about the size of a small pea. In one type of lentil the pea is reddish brown, hence the reference to “red” stew in Genesis 25:30. The pods are often in pairs or sets of three. In the Holy Land lentils grow in the cold season (November-March).

In Ezekiel 4:9 the strange bread, made from six kinds of grains and legumes including lentils, was probably intended to show that food would become scarce and that the people would have to eat whatever they could find. The lentil is typically used in soups and stews, as it was when Jacob used it to trick his brother Esau into giving up his rights as the firstborn son. Lentils were among the foodstuffs brought to David by local people when he was pursued by Absalom.

 Lentils are now widespread in Asia, India, and North Africa. In places where they are not known, we suggest using the word for a local type of bean rather than a transliteration. However, in Ezekiel 4:9 “beans” are also mentioned, so a possible rendering for “beans and lentils” is “different kinds of beans.” In Genesis 25:34 a generic expression for “pottage of lentils” would be appropriate, such as “bean soup,” “bean stew,” or “vegetable soup.” If a transliteration from a major language is desired, consider Arabic adas; French cristallin, lentille; Spanish lenteja; Portuguese lentilha; and Swahili adesi.

3 types of lentil, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

wheat

Two kinds of wild wheat have grown in the open deciduous oak woodland in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent for several thousand years: Einkorn Wheat Triticum monococcum and Emmer Wheat Triticum dicoccum. Both came into cultivation together with barley. Just before the time of the Romans, the Naked Bread Wheat or Hard Wheat Triticum durum started replacing the hulled varieties. This then became the favorite type of wheat for bread and macaroni. Spelt is a sub-member of the Triticum aestivum species.

In New Revised Standard Version, updated edition and some other versions, the generic Hebrew word bar has been rendered “wheat” in Jeremiah 23:28 et al. This is legitimate, since the grain referred to by bar was probably wheat. However, it might be better to say “grain” in these passages.

The most important early wheat for the Israelites was emmer, probably the only wheat known in Egypt, and referred to in Hebrew as chittah. However, according to Hepper (Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Plants: Flowers and Trees, Fruits and Vegetables, Ecology. Baker Book House, 1992), the seven-headed wheat of the Egyptian king’s dream (Genesis 41:5ff.) suggests that there may also have been Triticum turgidum (rivet wheat) in the emmer group. The Hebrew word kusemeth probably refers to a type of emmer wheat that the Egyptians called swt.

Wheat is a type of grass like rice and barley, growing to around 75 centimeters (2.5 feet) in height and having a head with many small grains in rows.

Bread made from wheat was the staple food for the people of ancient Israel, so God punished them by breaking “the staff of bread” (see, for example, Ezekiel 4:16).

If wheat is unfamiliar, translators can transliterate from a major language in non-rhetorical contexts (for example, English witi, Portuguese trigo, French ble or froment, Swahili ngano, Arabic kama/alkama). The transliteration may add a generic tag such as “grain.” The New Testament passages are mostly rhetorical, opening the possibility for a metaphorical equivalent.

Wheat head, photo by Gloria Suess

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

complete verse (Ezekiel 4:9)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 4:9:

  • Kupsabiny: “Take wheat, barley, beans, peas/lentils, millet and sorghum. Mix all these things to prepare from them bread that you can eat until those three hundred and ninety days are over while you lie on one side.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘Now, you get some wheat, barley, seeds of vegetable, beans, millet and spelt, and put these all in one container and that is what you will-make into bread. This is what you will-eat for a period/[lit. inside] of 390 days that you are-lying-down side-way on the left.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Before you do that, take some wheat and barley, beans, lentils, spelt and millet, and put them in a storage jar, and use that to bake breadfor yourself. That is what you will eat during the 390 days while you lie on your left side.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

barley

Barley Hordeum distichum or Hordeum vulgare is a type of grass like wheat and rice. It has been cultivated in the Middle East for thousands of years and is now one of the most prominent seed crops grown in the world. Twenty species are known, of which eight are European. Barley needs less rain than wheat does, so in the Holy Land it was typically found in the drier areas above the coastal plain and near the desert. From 2 Kings 7:1 and Revelation 6:6 we know that barley was considered inferior to wheat and was often used to feed animals, as it is today. When the wheat supply ran out, people had to make their bread with barley. Barley was gathered before wheat, the harvest coming around March or April in the lower regions and in May in the mountains (see Exodus 9:31 et al.). In Egypt and in ancient Greece barley was used to make beer.

Barley plants look like wheat or rice. They are less than 1 meter (3 feet) tall, and have a single head on each stalk, with six rows of kernels, although the biblical kind may have had only two rows. The head bends at a down-ward angle when it is ripe.

In the story of Gideon and the Midianites in Judges 7:13, “a cake of barley” representing the (despised) Israelite army tumbles into the Midianite camp and knocks down the tent (representing the nomadic Midianites).

Barley is a plant of temperate zones, like Europe and the Near East; it does not grow well in the tropics. However, barley has been recently introduced along with wheat into many parts of the world for brewing beer and other malted drinks. It is also known to have grown in Korea as early as 1500 B.C. along with wheat and millet. It is becoming known in Malay as barli. Except for the reference in Judges, all references to barley in the Bible are non-rhetorical, so unrelated cultural equivalents are discouraged. Some receptor language speakers may coin a name for it as in Malay, or the translator can use a transliteration from Hebrew (se‘orah), Latin (horideyo), or from a major language (for example, Arabic sha’ir, Spanish cebada, French orge, Portuguese cevada, Swahili shayiri), together with a classifier, if there is one (for example, “grain of shayir”).

Barley, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

See also barley bread.

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 4:9 - 4:10

In order to show that the conditions in Jerusalem will be very severe while it is being attacked, Ezekiel must eat food that is strictly rationed. All he is allowed to eat each day is a very small loaf of bread. This loaf must be made from a mixture of different grains to show that the famine in the city will be so severe that there will not be enough wheat or barley to make proper bread. The bread will have to be made from small quantities of grain and scraps of food that the people can scavenge.

And you: Not all translations retain this phrase, but it may be rendered “Now” (Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible).

Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt: Wheat and barley are cereal crops from which bread is made. Beans are nourishing seeds that grow in pods. They are usually eaten boiled or roasted. Lentils also grow in pods. They are like small peas and are eaten in soups or stews (compare Gen 25.34). Neither beans nor lentils are normally used in flour to make bread. Millet and spelt are cereal crops like wheat, but they are not as good as wheat for making bread. The fact that God tells Ezekiel to mix beans, lentils, millet and spelt with wheat and barley shows that food will be scarce in Jerusalem and there will not be enough of the better grain available.

In some cultures some of these grains and seeds may be unknown. Any that are known can be included, but rather than introduce borrowed words with zero meaning, we recommend the following:

• For wheat and barley, translators may use “grain for making bread,” or they may use a comparison with something known, for example, “seeds [or, grains] like rice for making bread.”

• For beans and lentils, they may say “seeds that people cook.”

• For millet and spelt, they may use “other grains” or “other edible seeds.”

But translators might need a footnote to indicate that some of these seeds are not good for bread. Alternatively, translators can try to make clear the significance of the mixture that Ezekiel used. There are some models below.

And put them into a single vessel, and make bread of them, that is, mix them all together in one container and grind them into flour and bake a loaf of bread from them. The text does not mention grinding, but simply says to put them all in one bowl and make them into bread. However, it will be helpful in many languages to add “grind them into flour for making bread.” New International Version says “put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself.” This rendering suggests that God told Ezekiel to collect enough seeds to last the whole time he was lying on his side. This is unlikely, and it is better to assume that each day Ezekiel was supposed to gather seeds, mix them, grind them into flour, and bake one small loaf. This reflects the day-to-day existence of the people in the besieged city better. In many languages it will be more logical to mention the vessel, or bowl, before the ingredients of the loaf; for example, Contemporary English Version has “Get a large bowl. Then mix together wheat, barley, beans, lentils, and millet, and make some bread.”

During the number of days that you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it: The bread that Ezekiel had to bake was to be his only food during the time he was lying on his side. There is a slight problem here, because according to verses 4-6, Ezekiel had to lie on his left side for 390 days and on his right side for 40 days. This is a total of 430 days. Some scholars have suggested that the reference to 40 days in verse 6 was added later; originally, Ezekiel wrote only about the 390 days. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has tried to solve the problem in a different way by rendering your side as “the left side.” Neither of these solutions is really satisfactory. It is best to translate the text as it stands despite the inconsistency that results. Translators may render this sentence as “This is what you will eat during the three hundred and ninety days that you are lying on your side.” For the textual problem concerning three hundred and ninety days, see the comments on 4.5.

And the food which you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: During the time Ezekiel was tied up by God and was lying on his side, his food was severely rationed. The loaf of bread each day was only to weigh twenty shekels, that is, about 230 grams (8 ounces). It is acceptable to say “a very small loaf.”

Once a day you shall eat it is literally “from time to time you must eat it,” which means that Ezekiel was to eat the bread at same time each day. Revised Standard Version misses the sense of the Hebrew here. Revised English Bible is better with “eaten at a set time each day” (similarly New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, New Century Version). A possible model for this clause and the previous one is “You must only eat a small loaf of eight ounces once a day at the same time every day.”

Some models that combine verses 9-10 are:

• “Take some wheat, barley, and seeds of rubbish grass. Mix them all together in one bowl [and grind them] and bake some bread. Make a loaf of about 200 grams. This is all you may eat, and you must eat it at the same time each day. Do this for all the 390 days that you lie on your side.

• “Get a bowl and bake some bread. There won’t be enough wheat and barley to make it, so find other kinds of seeds to put with it. Mix them all together [and grind them] and make a very small loaf. This is all you may eat, and you must eat it at the same time each day. Do this for all the 390 days that you lie on your side.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .