Bible Encyclopedias
Pestle

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(עֵַלי, eli, so called either as being round or lifted up), the instrument used for triturating in a mortar (Proverbs 27:22). It is supposed, from the above passage, not that the wheat was pounded to meal instead of being ground, but that it was pounded to be separated from the husk. The Jews very probably used wheat in the same manner as rice is now used in the East, that is, boiled up in pillaus variously prepared, which required that it should, like rice, be previously disengaged from the husk. (See MORTAR).