This word occurs twice in Scripture. The first occasion is in 2 Samuel 17:28, where beans are described as being brought to David, as well as wheat, barley, lentils, etc. as is the custom at the present day in many parts of the East when a traveler arrives at a village. So in Ezekiel 4:9, the prophet is directed to take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, etc. and make bread thereof. The common beans, or at least one of its varieties, has been employed as an article of diet from the most ancient times. Beans were employed as articles of diet by the ancients, as they are by the moderns; and are considered to give rise to flatulence, but otherwise to be wholesome and nutritious. They are cultivated over a great part of the old world, from the north of Europe to the south of India in the latter, however, forming the cold weather cultivation, with wheat, peas, etc. They are extensively cultivated in Egypt and Arabia. Dr. Kitto states that the extent of their cultivation in Palestine he had no means of knowing. In Egypt they are sown in November, and reaped in the middle of February (three and a half months in the ground); but in Syria they may be had throughout the spring. The stalks are cut down with the scythe, and these are afterwards cut and crushed, to fit them for the food of camels, oxen, and goats. The beans themselves, when sent to a market, are often deprived of their skins. Basnage reports it as the sentiment of some of the Rabbins, that beans were not lawful to the priests, on account of their being considered the appropriate food of mourning and affliction: but he does not refer to the authority; and neither in the sacred books nor in the Mishna can be found any traces of the notion to which he alludes. So far from attaching any sort of impurity to this legume, it is described as among the first-fruit offerings; and several other articles in the latter collection prove that the Hebrews had beans largely in use, after they had passed them through the mill.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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