Fig. 253—Millet—Panicum miliaceum
Millet occurs in , where the Prophet is directed to take unto him wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet and fitches, and to put them into one vessel, and to make bread thereof for himself. All the grains enumerated in this verse continue to form the chief articles of diet in the East in the present day, as they appear to have done in ancient times. The common millet is cultivated from the middle of Europe to the most southern part of India and is sometimes cultivated in England on account of the seeds being used for feeding birds and poultry. But the grain is usually imported into this country from the Mediterranean. In India it is cultivated in the cold weather, that is, in the same season with wheat and barley, and is an article of diet with the inhabitants. Having mentioned the extreme points where this grain is cultivated, it is hardly necessary to state that it is produced in the intermediate countries. Tournefort says that in the Isle of Samos the inhabitants, in preparing their bread, knead together one half wheat and the other half barley and millet mixed together. It is also an article of diet both in Persia and India, and is so universally cultivated in the East as one of their smaller corn-grasses, that it is most likely to be the kind alluded to in the passage of Ezekiel.
This Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature is a 6 volume set in 1 book. It has over 2Read More
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.
Wikipedia