the Week of Proper 27 / Ordinary 32
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Bible Dictionaries
Butter
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Butter. The word so rendered in our version very frequently means curds, curdled or sour milk, which has fermented. Genesis 18:8; Judges 5:26; 2 Samuel 17:29; Isaiah 7:22. In some places it is put for milk in general. Deuteronomy 32:14; Job 20:17; Job 29:6. It is used to illustrate the smooth deceit of an enemy. Psalms 55:21. In Proverbs 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 Proverbs 30:33.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Butter'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/b/butter.html. 1893.
