>k7 ny, literally ‘the time of eating.’ See Foop in vol. ii. p. 41 f.
2. The substance of grain ground but not sifted. Our English word is from the Anglo-Saxon melu, which is connected with the Gothie malan, ‘to grind.’ The word is used as the tr. of n>p kemah, which signifies meal in general, sometimes used with the genitive of the kind of grain from which it is made, as of the τοῦ ephah presented by the husband for his wife in the Jealousy Offering, Nu δ᾽, In this case, the homely nature of the material is supposed to typify the humiliation of the woman accused. When used to represent fine flour it is combined with nbo as in Gn 18°. Three seahs of this fine meal (probably about 4 pecks) were used by Sarah to make cakes for the angelic visitors at Mamre. The mention of the same quantity, ἀλεύρου σάτα τρία, in the parable of the leaven, Mt 13%, Lk 1321, seems to show that this was the ony ΠΌΡΟΥ to prepare at one time. Kemah and sdéleth are sometimes contrasted, as in the account of Solomon’s daily provision, which consisted of 60 kors (=6224 bushels) of meal and 30 kors of séleth (1 K 4533. Meal was the bread- stuff used by the poor. The widow of Zarephath had only a handful of kemah in her meal-tub, 1 K 17". It was with kemah that Elisha healed the poisonous pottage, 2 K 4. Meal was brought as part of the tribute to David on his becoming king in Hebron, 1 Ch 12%,
In the prophetic writings ‘meal’ is used in several figures. The humbling of the Daughter of Babylon was to be shown by her being reduced to the work of grinding meal asa sign of servitude, Is 473, Hosea represents the unprofitableness of the evil works of ΘΙ as sowing the wind, reap- ing the whirlwind whose bud (n>y) makes no meal (Hos 87). There is a peculiar force here in the assonance ‘én ἰδ zémah béli ya'dseh kémah. For other particulars see BREAD and Foop.
In the RV the word occurs very much more frequently in connexion with the minhah or meal offering, Lv 216. and many other passayes. This is called ‘meat offering’ in the AV. See OFFERING and SACRIFICE.
The Israelites seem to have employed mills from a very early period, but it is remarkable that they were apparently unknown in Egypt until a com- paratively late time. There is no word which unequivocally signifies ‘mill’ in the language of the O'd or Middle Empire, as far as we know.
MEAN
Their grain seems to have been pounded or brayed. The word kemh occurs in a list of offer- ings at Denderah asa kind of flour. In Ethiopic kamihi is used for ‘pulse.’ The word ke-me is used for meal in several cuneiform texts (see Strassmaier, /nschr. v. Nabonidus, Leipzig, 1889). A. MACALISTER.
MEAL-OFFERING is the rendering substituted by the OT revision for AV ‘ meat-offering’ (7930). The American Revisers further record their prefer- ence for ‘meal-ollering’ in Jer 14 1735 3318 415 In these passages our RV reads ‘oblation’ with ‘meal-otlering’ in the margin. For details see general article SACRIFICE.
MEAN.—The verb to ‘mean’ (from Anglo-Sax. maenan to intend, tell, and connected with ‘ mind,’ the root being man to think) signifies sometimes to intend, purpose: Gn 50 ‘But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good’; Is 3% ‘What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?’ ; 107 ‘Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so’; Ac 21° ‘What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart?’; Ac 27? ‘We launched, meaning to sail by the coasts of Asia’ ; 2Co 8 ‘For I mean not that other men be eased and ye burdened.’ Cf. Shaks. Merry Wives, Vv. ii. 15, ‘No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns.’
The subst. meaning, which in Dn 8", 1 Co 14% signifies ‘understanding,’ ‘sense,’ as in its modern use, expresses ‘purpose,’ ‘intention,’ in 1 Mac 15* ‘My meaning also being to go through the country’ (βούλομαι δὲ ἐκβῆναι κατὰ τὴν χώραν; RV ‘I am minded to land in the country’). Cf. Jer 44% Coy. ‘Purposly have ye set up youre owne good meanynges, and hastely have ye fulfilled youre owne intente’; Hall, Works ii. 103, ‘Good mean- ings have oft-times proved injurious.’
The subst. ‘mean’ (from Old Fr. meien, moien ; Lat. medius) signified cnemaly something that was in the middle. Thus Tymme’s Calvin’s Genesis (1578), p. 678 ‘[Moses] was a meane be- tweene the Patriarches and the Apostles’ ; Elyot, Governour, ii. 334, ‘He that punissheth whyle he is angry, shall never kepe that meane which is betwene to moche and to lyttell’; Barlowe, Dialoge, 103, ‘God loved the people so entyerly, that of theym he chose bysshoppes, preutes, and deacons, to offer speciall sacrifices for the elensynge of theyr synnes, and to be as meanes betwene hym and them’; and Knox, Works, iii. 98, ‘Is he who discendit from heaven and vouchsaffit to be conversant with synneris, commanding all soir vexit and seik to cum unto him (who, hanging upon the Cross, prayit first for his enemyis), becum now so untractable, that he will not heir us without a person to be a meane?’ From this arose easily the sense of instrument, which is often sing., ‘a mean,’ in the Eng. of that day, though in AV itself it is always plu., ‘means.’ Thus Lever, Sermons, 79, ‘Of God surely thou hast received it, by what messenger or meane so ever thou came unto it,’ and Knox, Works, iii. 299, ‘The instrumente and meane wherwith Christe Jesus used to remove and put awaye the horrible feare and anguysshe of his Disciples, is his only worde’; and in AV, Wis 81% ‘By the means ot her I shall obtain immortality’ (RV ‘because of her’); 2Co 1 ‘the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons’ (RV ‘by means ot many’); Rey 13 ‘by the means of those miracles’ (RV ‘by reason of the signs’). This word is some- times also an adj., of which we have such examples in AV as in the mean while, 1 K 18%, Jn 451, Ro 915, in the mean time, 1 Mac 1151, Lk 19} ; and in the mean season, 1 Mac 11 164%, Cf. Pr. Bk. ‘ The