Butter

VIEW:46 DATA:01-04-2020
BUTTER.—See Food, Milk.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909


cheme'ah, from an Arabic root meaning "coagulated." Curdled milk, curds, butter, and cheese (Jdg_5:25; 2Sa_17:29). But the butter in the East is more fluid and less solid than ours. The milk is put in a whole goatskin bag, sewed up, and hung on a frame so as to swing to and fro. The fluidity explains Job_20:17, "brooks of honey and butter"; Job_29:6, "I washed my steps with butter." Isa_7:15; Isa_7:22, "butter and honey shall he eat": besides these being the usual food for children, and so in the case of the prophetess' child typifying the reality of Christ's humanity, which stooped to the ordinary food of infants, a state of distress over the land is implied, when through the invaders milk and honey, things produced spontaneously, should be the only abundant food. In Psa_55:21 the present reading is properly "smooth are the butter-masses (i.e. sweetness) of his mouth." The Chaldee version translated as KJV Gesenius explains Pro_30:33, "the pressure (not 'churning') of milk bringeth forth cheese."
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.


Butter. Curdled milk. Gen_18:8; Deu_32:14; Jdg_5:25; Job_20:17. Milk is generally, offered to travellers in Palestine, in a curdled or sour state, Hebrew, leben, thick, almost like butter.
Hasselquist describes the method of making butter employed by the Arab women: "they made butter in a leather bag, hung on three poles erected for the purpose, in the form of a cone, and drawn to and fro by two women."
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863


is taken in Scripture, as it has been almost perpetually in the east, for cream or liquid butter, Pro_30:33; 2Sa_17:29. The ancient way of making butter in Arabia and Palestine was probably nearly the same as is still practised by the Bedoween Arabs, and Moors in Barbary, and which is thus described by Dr. Shaw: “Their method of making butter is by putting the milk or cream into a goat's skin turned inside out, which they suspend from one side of the tent to the other; and then pressing it to and fro in one uniform direction, they quickly separate the unctious and wheyey parts. In the Levant they tread upon the skin with their feet, which produces the same effect.” The last method of separating the butter from the milk, perhaps may throw light upon a passage in Job of some difficulty: “When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil,” Job_31:6. The method of making butter in the east illustrates the conduct of Jael, the wife of Heber, described in the book of Judges: “And Sisera said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink, for I am thirsty: and she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.” In the song of Deborah, the statement is repeated: “He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish,” Jdg_4:19; Jdg_5:25. The word חמאה , which our translators rendered butter, properly signifies cream; which is undoubtedly the meaning of it in this passage: for Sisera complained of thirst, and asked a little water to quench it;—a purpose to which butter is but little adapted. Mr. Harmer, indeed, urges the same objection to cream, which, he contends, few people would think a very proper beverage for one that was extremely thirsty; and concludes that it must have been butter-milk which Jael, who had just been churning, gave to Sisera. But the opinion of Dr. Russel is preferable,—that the hemah of the Scriptures is probably the same as the haymak of the Arabs, which is not, as Harmer supposed, simple cream, but cream produced by simmering fresh sheep's milk for some hours over a slow fire. It could not be butter newly churned, which Jael presented to Sisera, because the Arab butter is apt to be foul, and is commonly passed through a strainer before it is used: and Russel declares, he never saw butter offered to a stranger, but always haymak; nor did he ever observe the orientals drink butter-milk, but always leban, which is coagulated sour milk, diluted with water. It was leban, therefore, which Pococke mistook for butter-milk, with which the Arabs treated him in the Holy Land. A similar conclusion may be drawn concerning the butter and milk which the wife of Heber presented to Sisera: they were forced cream or
haymak, and leban, or coagulated sour milk, diluted with water, which is a common and refreshing beverage in those sultry regions. In Isa_7:15, butter and honey are mentioned as food which, in Egypt and other places in the east, is in use to this day. The butter and honey are mixed, and the bread is then dipped in it.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.


See FOOD.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.


Butter [MILK]
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.


Job_20:17 (b) Butter and honey are the products of living animals. The Lord is telling us in this passage that the blessings of the living GOD for and upon the one who daily trusts Him and loves His will will be copious and constant. The living Lord gives His richest blessings to His people who know Him as the living Lord. There are those Christians who live around the Cross and forget that CHRIST is now the living Son of GOD in His human body on the throne of Heaven. Those who have daily fellowship with the Lord JESUS in Heaven are said to be living an milk and honey.

Job_29:6 (b) This is a type of great prosperity and abundant riches in the things of earth. These are had because the living Lord of Heaven commands His daily blessing of His obedient child.

Psa_55:21 (a) This is a type, because of its slippery and greasy character, of the deceitful and clever statements made by the ungodly in order to mislead the hearer.

Isa_7:15 (b) This rich food here represents the abundant blessings which JESUS received from His heavenly Father in great quantity even while a child on earth.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.


Butter
is the rendering in the Auth. Vers. of חֶמְאָה, chemah' (after the Sept. βούτυρον, Vulg. butyrum), wherever it occurs (in Job_29:6, the form is חֵמָה; in Psa_55:21, it is מִחֲמָאֹת, machamaoth'); but critics agree that usually, at least, it signifies curdied milk (from an obsolete root, חָמָה, chamah', to grow thick). Indeed, it may be doubted whether it denotes butter in any place besides Deu_32:14, “butter of kine,” and Pro_30:33, “the churning of milk bringeth forth butter,” as all the other texts will apply better to curdled milk than to butter. In Gen_18:8, “butter and milk” are mentioned among the things which Abraham set before his heavenly guests (comp. Jdg_5:25; 2Sa_17:29). Milk is generally offered to travelers in Palestine in a curdled or sour state, “lebben,” thick, almost like butter (comp. Josephus's rendering in Jdg_4:19, γάλα διεφθορὸς ἤδη).' In Deu_32:15, we find among the blessings which Jeshurun had enjoyed milk of kine contrasted with milk of sheep. The two passages in Job (Job_20:17; Job_29:6) where the word chemah occurs are also best satisfied by rendering it milk; and the same may be said of Psa_55:21, which should be compared with Job_29:6. In Pro_30:33, Gesenius thinks that cheese is meant, the associated word מַיוֹsignifying pressure rather than “churning.” Jarchi (on Gen_18:8) explains chemah to be cream, and Vitringa and Hitzig give this meaning to the word in Isa_7:15-22. SEE MILK.
Butter was, however, doubtless much in use among the Hebrews, and we may be sure that it was prepared in the same manner as at this day among the Arabs and Syrians. Butter was not in use among the Greeks and Romans except for medicinal purposes, but this fact is of no weight as to its absence from Palestine. Robinson mentions the use of butter at the present day (Bib. Res. 2, 127), and also the method of churning (2. 180; 3, 315); and from this we may safely infer that the art of butter-making was known to the ancient inhabitants of the land, so little have the habits of the people of Palestine been modified in the lapse of centuries. Burckhardt (Travels in Arabia, 1, 52) mentions the different uses of butter by the Arabs of the Hejaz. The milk is put into a large copper pan over a slow fire, and a little leben or sour milk (the same as the curdled milk mentioned above), or a portion of the dried entrails of a lamb, is thrown into it. The milk then separates, and is put into a goat-skin bag, which is tied to one of the tent poles, and constantly moved backward and forward for two hours. The buttery substance then coagulates, the water is pressed out, and the butter put into another skin. In two days the butter is again placed over the fire, with the addition of a quantity of burgoul (wheat boiled with leaven and dried in the sun), and allowed to boil for some time, during which it is carefully skimmed. It is then found that the burgoul has precipitated all the foreign substances, and that the butter remains quite clear at the top. This is the process used by the Bedouins, and it is also the one employed by the settled people of Syria and Arabia. The chief difference is that, in making butter and cheese, the townspeople employ the milk of cows and buffaloes; whereas the Bedouins, who do not keep these animals, use that of sheep and goats. The butter is generally white, of the color and consistence of lard, and is not much relished by English travelers. It is eaten with bread in large quantities by those who can afford it; not spread out thinly over the surface as with us, but taken in mass with the separate morsels of bread. SEE FOOD. The butter of the Hebrews, such as it was, might have been sometimes clarified and preserved in skins or jars, as at the present day in Asia, and, when poured out, resembles rich oil (Job_20:17). By this process it acquires a certain rancid taste, disagreeable, for the most part, to strangers, though not to the natives. All Arab food considered well prepared swims in butter, and large quantities of it are swallowed independently. The place of butter, as a general article of food in the East, was supplied in some measure by the vegetable oil which was so abundant. Butter and honey were used together, and were esteemed among the richest productions of the land (Isa_7:15); and travelers tell us that the Arabs use cream or new butter mixed with honey as a principal delicacy. SEE OIL.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.





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