Hebrew word · H6321
פּוֹל
ufol
bean
The broad bean or fava bean (Vicia faba). It appears elsewhere only in 2 Sam 17:28, where it is among the emergency supplies brought to David's exhausted men in the wilderness, listed beside lentils and roasted grain.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
beans
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
The broad bean or fava bean (Vicia faba). It appears elsewhere only in 2 Sam 17:28, where it is among the emergency supplies brought to David's exhausted men in the wilderness, listed beside lentils and roasted grain.
- Against the English
'Beans' in all major versions. This is accurate, though English readers may picture modern dried beans of many kinds.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Fava beans are well attested archaeologically in the Levant. Ancient writers mention bean or legume flour being mixed into bread mainly in times of poverty or shortage. Roman writers note bean meal stretching wheat flour. Rabbinic sources treat legume breads as poor food.
Where it appears
2 Samuel · 1
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2 Samuel 17:28 וּפ֥וֹל and bean[s]
They brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, as well as wheat, barley, flour, roasted grain, beans, lentils,
Ezekiel · 1
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Ezekiel 4:9 וּפ֨וֹל and bean[s]
But take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. This is what you are to eat during the 390 days you lie on your side.
Here: The broad bean (fava). Beans were normally eaten as a stew or roasted, not baked into bread. Putting them in bread points to a shortage of grain.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.