Cereal grains in the Bible

 

                            Wheat field, North Carolina

Cereal grains include corn (maize), rice, wheat, spelt, rye, oats, barley, millet, sorghum and others. Maize was domesticated in the New World, and therefore, was not known by people in the Bible. Rice requires conditions not found by people in the Bible. 

The King James version of the Bible mentions corn several times. One such is in Genesis 27, in which Isaac is said to have blessed Jacob, but not Esau, with corn crops. In Genesis 41-47, the word "corn" is used several times, but, for reasons given above, this can't have been maize, but must have been some other grain. 

John 12:24 (KJV) Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. In this verse, "corn" has a different meaning. It refers to the grain (or fruit) as a corn. Apparently this word use was legitimate in the time of the KJV translators.

The Bible uses some of the types of grain. One verse refers to four different grains:

Ezekiel 4:9a "Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel...." (World English Bible, public domain. Beans and lentils are not cereal grains.)

Consider wheat. Several related species of grasses are called wheat. These include durum, emmer, einkorn, and others. 

Spelt is mentioned three times in the Old Testament. Each time, wheat is also mentioned. 

I did not find the word, "rye", the word, "oats," or the word, "sorghum," in the Bible. Nor did I find "durum," "emmer," or "einkorn."

Barley is mentioned several times. In John 6, the boy with his food had barley loaves as part of his provisions for the day.

Cereal grains, especially wheat, are food crops that are very important to us today, and were, if anything, even more important in Bible times. These grains could be stored for a long time. They were used to make bread. Jesus said, in John 6:35, "I am the bread of life." (WEB) Adam and Eve were told, in Genesis 3:19, that they would earn their bread through hard labor. In Genesis 41-47, the famine in Egypt is described as a lack of bread. In Exodus 12-13, the Hebrews were instructed to eat unleavened bread. Exodus 25:30, and Exodus 29, and Leviticus 8, and other passages, give instructions about bread as part of Tabernacle worship. In Judges 7, a loaf of barley bread appears in a dream of a Midianite invader of Israel, a sign that God is with Gideon, and against the Midianites.

The word, bread, occurs many times in the Bible. It usually seems to refer to the ordinary events of daily life, especially eating. Sometimes it is a symbol of hospitality, or of friendship. In the Lord's Prayer, we ask God to give us our daily bread.

At the Last Supper: Matthew 26:26 As they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks for it, and broke it. He gave to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” There have been, and are, theological disputes among Christians over what that means. I won't settle that here.

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

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Three types of grain offerings

Leviticus 2:1 “‘When anyone offers an offering of a meal offering to Yahweh, his offering shall be of fine flour. He shall pour oil on it, and put frankincense on it.

4 “‘When you offer an offering of a meal offering baked in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.

14 “‘If you offer a meal offering of first fruits to Yahweh, you shall offer for the meal offering of your first fruits grain in the ear parched with fire, bruised grain of the fresh ear. (World English Bible, public domain)

There were three types of meal (or grain) offerings specified in Leviticus 2. One was of recently harvested grain, presumably wheat (corn did not grow in the Old World at that time). One was of flour, ground up grain. One was of baked goods, flour with oil added to it. (The King James version of the Bible uses "meat" in Leviticus 2, but meat, in the culture in which the KJV was translated, meant "food, of any kind.")

Note that, for two of these, it was not "if you offer," but "when you offer." This wasn't a choice. Why the third type was optional, I don't know.

Leviticus 2 includes some other requirements, which aren't quoted above. No yeast was to be added to the grain. No honey was to be added to the grain. All grain offerings were to have salt added to them. I don't know why God specified these requirements, but God is God, and no doubt He had his reasons, which, perhaps, were obvious to people living in the culture of that time.

Why three types of offerings? Again, I don't know. But, it occurs to me, these might be taken as symbolic of the Christian life. We need to offer ourselves to Christ as Lord when we first come to belief -- first fruits. We need to continue doing so as we become more mature in the Christian life -- ground into fine flour. And we need to continue serving Christ until the end -- baked in the oven, mixed with oil, ready to eat.

There is a discussion of the grain offerings here. It's a pretty good discussion, with some speculation, about the significance of the grain offerings, for the Israelites and for us. (Unfortunately, the author confuses "principal" and "principle.") One thing that the article said struck me. That was that Moses gave these commands to the people in the desert, where wheat would have been hard to come by. Manna, on the other hand, would have been easy to come by, but there was no requirement of a manna offering. See also the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary on Exodus 2. Both these sources offer opinions on why honey and yeast (leaven) were prohibited, and why salt was required. Leviticus 6 has a section on the grain offerings, but it doesn't add much to Leviticus 2.

Remember that Christ used a story about wheat as a parable of winning others to the Kingdom.

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The glory of God's creation, from R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone

I recently re-read Lorna Doone, by R. D. Blackmore. I first read a condensed version of the book while I was in elementary school. The Wikipedia article on the book says that it was originally published anonymously in 1869, as a print run of only 300, because the author had difficulty finding a publisher, but that the book has never been out of print since. Here are a few excerpts from the book, all having to do with the glory found in the non-human world:

The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of grey mountain, and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped, and crept to the hollow places; then stole away in line and column, holding skirts, and clinging subtly at the sheltering corners, where rock hung over grass-land; while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding. Then the woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was on them, as they owned already, touched with gold, and red, and olive; and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose; according to the scene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the cloven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here." Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower, and bud, and bird, had a fluttering sense of them; and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence. So perhaps shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all things shall arise and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen.

R. D. Blackmore. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (public domain). From Chapter XXXIII, "An Early Morning Call."

Now though it is part of my life to heed, it is no part of my tale to tell, how the wheat was coming on. I reckon that you, who read this story, after I am dead and gone (and before that none shall read it), will say, "Tush! What is his wheat to us? We are not wheat: we are human beings: and all we care for is human doings." This may be very good argument, and in the main, I believe that it is so. Nevertheless, if a man is to tell only what he thought and did, and not what came around him, he must not mention his own clothes, which his father and mother bought for him. And more than my own clothes to me, ay, and as much as my own skin, are the works of nature round about, whereof a man is the smallest.

R. D. Blackmore. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (public domain). From Chapter L, "A Merry Meeting a Sad One."

God has made the earth quite large, with a spread of land large enough for all to live on, without fighting. Also a mighty spread of water, laying hands on sand and cliff with a solemn voice in storm-time; and in the gentle weather moving men to thoughts of equity. This, as well, is full of food; being two-thirds of the world, and reserved for devouring knowledge; by the time the sons of men have fed away the dry land. Yet before the land itself has acknowledged touch of man, upon one in a hundred acres; and before one mile in ten thousand of the exhaustless ocean has ever felt the plunge of hook, or combing of the haul-nets; lo, we crawl, in flocks together upon the hot ground that stings us, even as the black grubs crowd upon the harried nettle! Surely we are too much given to follow the tracks of each other.

R. D. Blackmore. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor (public domain). From Chapter LXIX, "Not to be Put up With."