Butter
BUTTER
The Hebrew word usually rendered butter denotes, properly, sour or curdled milk, Gen 18:8 ; Jdg 5:25 ; Job 20:17 . This last is a favorite beverage in the East to the present day. Burckhardt, when crossing the desert from the country south of the Dead sea to Egypt, says, “Besides flour, I carried some butter and dried leben, (sour milk,) which, when dissolved in water, not only forms a refreshing beverage, but is much to be recommended as a preservative of health when travelling in summer.” Yet butter may have been known to the Hebrews. It is much used by the Arabs and Syrians at the present day, and is made by pouring the milk into the common goatskin bottle, suspending this from the tent-poles, and swinging it to and fro with a jerk, until the process is completed. Still it is not certain that the Hebrew word rendered butter ever denotes that article. Even in Pro 30:33 we may render, “The pressing of milk bringeth forth cheese;” and everywhere else the rendering “curd,” or “curdled milk,” would be appropriate.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Butter
is the rendering in the Auth. Vers. of , chemah’ (after the Sept. , Vulg. butyrum), wherever it occurs (in Job 29:6, the form is ; in Psa 55:21, it is , machamaoth’); but critics agree that usually, at least, it signifies curdied milk (from an obsolete root, , 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, ).’ 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 signifying 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.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Butter (2)
is the rendering in the Auth. Vers. of , chemah’ (after the Sept. , Vulg. butyrum), wherever it occurs (in Job 29:6, the form is ; in Psa 55:21, it is , machamaoth’); but critics agree that usually, at least, it signifies curdied milk (from an obsolete root, , 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, ).’ 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 signifying 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.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Butter
(Heb. hemah), curdled milk (Gen. 18:8; Judg. 5:25; 2 Sam. 17:29), or butter in the form of the skim of hot milk or cream, called by the Arabs kaimak, a semi-fluid (Job 20:17; 29:6; Deut. 32:14). The words of Prov. 30:33 have been rendered by some “the pressure [not churning] of milk bringeth forth cheese.”
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Butter
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.”
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Butter
BUTTER.See Food, Milk.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Butter
See FOOD.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Butter
Butter [MILK]
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Butter
This was curdled milk. Gen 18:8; Deu 32:14. Jael brought Sisera ‘butter’ to drink, Jdg 5:25; and Job in Job 29:6 speaks of his steps being washed with butter when the Almighty was with him in prosperity. The promised land was to flow with milk and honey: cf. Job 20:17. Curdled milk is a common beverage in the East, and when mixed with honey is very agreeable.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Butter
General references
Gen 18:8; Deu 32:14; Jdg 5:25; 2Sa 17:29; Job 20:17; Isa 7:15; Isa 7:22
Made by churning
Pro 30:33
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Butter
Butter. The word so rendered in our version very frequently means curds, curdled or sour milk, which has fermented. Gen 18:8; Jdg 5:26; 2Sa 17:29; Isa 7:22. In some places it is put for milk in general. Deu 32:14; Job 20:17; Job 29:6. It is used to illustrate the smooth deceit of an enemy. Psa 55:21. In Pro 30:33 some would read cheese. Butter, indeed, as we understand and use it, is not known in Syria; it would soon become rancid and unfit for food. But there is a process of churning which Dr. Thomson describes. A bottle is made by stripping off entire the skin of a young buffalo. This is filled with milk, kneaded, wrung, and shaken, till, such as it is, the butter comes. This butter is then taken out, boiled or melted, and put into bottles made of goats’ skins. In winter it resembles candied honey; in summer it is mere oil. Probably it is this substance, and this mode of churning, that is alluded to in Pro 30:33.
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
Butter
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.”
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
BUTTER
Gen 18:8; Deu 32:14; Jdg 5:25; 2Sa 17:29; Pro 30:33; Isa 7:15
Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible
Butter
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 , 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.
Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary
Butter
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.