The Yine of Sodom (Dt 32'=) is probably, as Seetzen and Robinson have supposed, the 'iis/icr or Caloirupis procern, an asclepiadaceous plant, whose fruit looks attractive, but is full of dry cottony hairs. These are the 'grapes of gall.' Pococke supposed that it referred to diseased pomegranates, and Hooker conjectures that the colocynth may have been meant ; but its fruit has no resemblance to grapes (see Wild Gourd, above). Elliot suggests o.ak galls as referred to, and Hasselquist the egg plant, either Sulanun\ mdongena or S. Sodommurrt ; out the first identification is most probably correct more especially as the Cfdotropis, while not very common, grows abundantly in one locality by the Dead Sea.
Walnut (n;(( '('fjoz, rapifa) is not mentioned as a fniit ; but a garden of nuts, which is mentioned in Ca 6", is taken by the rabbinical authorities as meaning a garden of walnuts. The Arabs call the tree gynus, and it is very common ia Palestine. The common walnut, Juglans rcgia, Ls too well known to need description.
Fruit is referred to metaphorically in the sense of (1) the result of a course of conduct (Ro 6'-'); (2) the work of the Holy Spirit in the conduct (Gal 5", Eph 5") ; (3) chil'dren (Ps 127') ; (4) praise (Is 57'") ; (5) the results of industry (Pr 31"'-''), etc.
Mallows (n;'?5 rmtlluah, LXX HXinov, Vulg. Ar-
borum cortices) are spoken of in Job 30* as plants eaten by starving outcasts. They have been vari- ously identified as nettles by K. Levi, as possibly a mesembryanthemum by Kitto, as mallows (malva) by Thomson (L. and B. i. 291), as Corchoms olito- rtus by Sprengel ; but are most probably the salt- wort, as in the RV, the Atriplex halimus or sea- purslain, which is called by the Arabs muUuah, and grows on the shores of the Dead Sea and of the Gulf of Akabah. It is a plant with sour leaves, and has been known to form a part of the diet of the people in periods of scarcity. Thomson saw poor people cutting coarse green food of this kind as a relish for bread (ii. 345). The mallow in Arabic is called khitbbarzeh. In a parallel passage in Job 24" the poor are said to cut '?'^3 for their children, which may be cattle food (Is 30^") or coarse vegetables in general, and probably the nix or greens which the prophet went to gather were of the same nature (2 K 4^). The Syriac uses this name malluah for the '^nri or ' nettle of Zeph 2^.
Juniper roots (nni rothem). This occurs along with the last as part of the food of the outcast in Job 30'', but the word occurs also as the name of the tree under which Elijah sheltered (1 K 19"), and in the phrase 'coals of juniper' in I's 120^. LXX renders it 'VaBixiv or "PajjAe, and in Job /jffat {uXuK. Symm. tr. it jji^av airuv aypluv, and Josephus does not name the tree, but calls it ' a certain tree' (Ant. VUI. xiii. 7). The Syriac VS calls it a terebinth, and Clement a Paliurus [Pmdagog. iii. 236). The later Jewish authorities, however, recognized it as the desert broom, Retamn retem, which the Arabs call retama. It is a shrub witli pale pink flowers and very bitter roots. It grows about 10 ft. high, and in many places in the desert is the only shrub under which one could shelter. Robinson describes it in such places ; and one of the wilderness stations of Israel was called Rithmah = broomy (Nu 33'*). The roots were used as fuel (Ps 120''), and theRevisers have put ' to warm them ' in marg. of Job 30S which, considering the uneat- able nature of the roots, is a more intelligible ren- dering. The word c~r!^ may be regarded as a derivative of the verb D;n ' to heat,' in which sense the same word occurs in Is 47". This sense is taken by some Heb. commentators, as R. Levi ben-Gerson {m loc), but the rendering of the text is that in the Gemara, A boda Zara, i. Juniper roots are often used for fuel in the wilderness (Thomson, i. 345).
B. Animal food consisted either of flesh or of animal products, such as milk, eggs, and honey. Flesh was habitually used only in royal or great houses, and among ordinary people was chiefly used at feasts. Its sources were restricted by law among the Jews, by custom aniong the neighbour- ing nations. The word ixf , which literally means flesh meat (Ps 78-''- "), was sometimes used for food in general (Ex 2V).
The division of beasts into clean and unclean, mentioned in the story of the Deluge (Gn 7"), was written in the light of later legislation, but em- bodies a distinction which can be traced back to a very early period of human history. The two lists of clean and unclean animals (Lv ll'"- and Dt 14''") are practically identical. The mammals permitted to bo eaten were the ruminants proper, except the camel, which, with the hyrax, liare, and swine, are prohibited by name. Tiiere is reason to believe that this selection is of more than arbitrary value, and that the danger of the transmission of parasitic diseases by the flcsli of these is less than in the case of ,the excluded forms (see Gu^neau de Rlussy, Etude sur I'hijgiinc de Moise). For fanci- ful representations of the forbidden animals as types of vices, see Eusebius, Priep. Erang. viii. 9 ; Clement, Picdag. ii. 10 ; Novatianua, de cibis JudtBorum, iii.