Beans

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

BEANS ( pôl , Arab. [Note: Arabic.] fûl ). A very common and popular vegetable in Palestine, used from ancient times; they are the seeds of the Vicia faba . The bean plant, which is sown in Oct. or Nov., is in blossom in early spring, when its sweet perfume fills the air. Beans are gathered young and eaten, pod and seed together, cooked with meat; or the fully mature beans are cooked with fat or oil. As the native of Palestine takes little meat, such leguminous plants are a necessary ingredient of his diet (  2 Samuel 17:28 ). In   Ezekiel 4:9 we read of beans as being mixed with barley, lentils, millet, and fitches to make bread.

E. W. G. Masterman.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Among the supplies brought to David at Mahanaim ( 2 Samuel 17:28). An ingredient in Ezekiel's ( Ezekiel 4:9) bread for 390 days, during his representative siege of Jerusalem. The food of the poor, and of horses. Our pulse is akin to the Hebrew Pul .

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Beans.  2 Samuel 17:28;  Ezekiel 4:9. Beans are cultivated in Palestine, which produces many of the leguminous order of plants, such as, lentils, kidney-beans, vetches, etc.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

pol . The common and well-known bean. It grows plentifully in Palestine, and is eaten with rice or mixed with wheat and barley in making bread for the poor.  2 Samuel 17:28;  Ezekiel 4:9 .

Holman Bible Dictionary

Faba vulgaris  2 Samuel 17:28 Ezekiel 4:9

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 2 Samuel 17:28  Ezekiel 4:9

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

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.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

bēnz ( פול , pōl  ; Arabic fūl ): A very common product of Palestine; a valuable and very ancient article of diet. The Bible references are probably to the Faba vulgaris (N.D. Leguminosae ) or horsebean. This is sown in the autumn; is in full flower - filling the air with sweet perfume - in the early spring; and is harvested just after the barley and wheat. The bundles of black bean stalks, plucked up by the roots and piled up beside the newly winnowed barley, form a characteristic feature on many village threshing-floors. Beans are threshed and winnowed like the cereals. Beans are eaten entire, with the pod, in the unripe state, but to a greater extent the hard beans are cooked with oil and meat.

In  Ezekiel 4:9 , beans are mentioned with other articles as an unusual source of bread and in  2 Samuel 17:28 David receives from certain staunch friends of his at Mahanaim a present, which included "beans, and lentils, and parched pulse."