Cheese
“Coagulated milk”
Summary
A dairy product made from coagulated and compressed milk, mentioned in Scripture as part of provisions and used figuratively by Job to describe human formation.
☩Biblical References
Cheese is mentioned three times in Scripture, each using a different Hebrew term indicating various degrees of coagulation. Jesse sent David with 'ten cheeses' (literally 'slices of curdled milk') to deliver to the captain of the thousand. When David fled from Absalom, Barzillai and others brought provisions including cheese (shephoth, meaning 'filtered from whey') for his weary company. Job, describing God's formation of the human body in the womb, asks, 'Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?'—alluding to the progressive solidification characteristic of cheese-making.
☩Production and Character
Eastern cheese was typically exhibited in small cakes about the size of a tea-saucer, white in color, and excessively salt. It has no rind and soon becomes exceedingly hard and dry, being not made for long keeping—best when new and relatively soft. In making cheese, the common rennet was either buttermilk or a decoction of the great-headed thistle or wild artichoke. The curds were put into small baskets made of rushes or palm leaves, tied up close, and pressure applied. Among Bedouin Arabs, butter was generally preferred to cheese, though they prepared a similar substance of coagulated buttermilk dried until hard and then ground.
☩Historical Context
There was even a valley at Jerusalem called the Tyropoeon (cheese-makers' valley), doubtless from its being occupied by persons of this craft. The Mishna contains several regulations about cheese production, including the pressure by which it was made, proving that no preparation of milk was considered cheese while still fluid. It was also decided that cheese made by foreigners could not be eaten, from fear it might derive from milk of animals sacrificed to idols. An instrument for cutting firm cheese is mentioned in the Mishna, confirming cheese was well-known to the Jews.
References
- 1.John McClintock and James Strong, "Cheese," in Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. II (Harper & Brothers, 1867–1887).
- 2.George Morrish, "Cheese," in Morrish's Concise Bible Dictionary (George Morrish, 1898).
- 3.F. N. Peloubet & M. A. Peloubet (ed.), "Cheese," in Smith's Bible Dictionary (Porter & Coates, 1884).
- 4.Andrew Robert Fausset, "Cheese," in The Englishman's Critical and Expository Bible Cyclopædia (Hodder & Stoughton, 1878).