FLESH-HOOK

flesh' (Ro 8=) is Intended to deny sinfulness, not a similar body in Christ (see Coram, in loc).

Alfred E. Garvie.

FLESH -HOOK.— The flesh-hoolc used by the priest's servant at Shiloh was a three-pronged fork (1 S 2"), as were probably those of bronze and gold mentioned in connexion with the Tabernacle (Ex 27' 38») and Temple (1 Ch 28", 2 Ch 4«) respectively.

A. R. S. Kennedy.

FLESHL7, FLESH7.— There is a distinction pre-served in the AV between these words. ' Fleshly ' is that which belongs to the flesh, carnal, as Col 2'* 'fleshly mind,' as opposed to 'spiritually minded' (cf. Ro 8"). ' Fleshy ' is that which is made of flesh, tender, as 2 Co 3' ' written . . . not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.'

FLESH POTS (Ex 16»).— See House, § 9.

FLINT. — See Mining and Metals.

FLOCK.— See Sheep.

FLOOD. — See Deluge. And notice that the word is used generally for a stream or river, as Is 44' ' I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground' (RV 'streams'). Sometimes a par-ticular river is meant, the Euphrates, the Nile, or the Jordan. (1) The Euphrates is referred to in Jos 24^ ('your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood,' RV 'beyond the River') 24»- «, 2 Es 13", 1 Mac 7'. (2) The NUe in Ps 78", Am 8«-95, Jer 46'- K (3) The Jordan in Ps 66' (' they went through the flood on foot ') . The word is also frequently used in AV as now, of a torrent, as Ps 69* ' I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me' (Heb. shibboleth, the word which the Ephraimites pronounced sibboleth).

FLOOR.— Used in AV (o) in the primary sense of a house-floor, and (6) in the secondary sense of a threshing-floor, the Heb. words for which are quite distinct. Under (a) we have the earthen floor of the Tabernacle, Nu 5", and the wooden floor of the Temple, 1 K 6" (see House, § 4.) By 'from floor to floor,' 7' RV, is meant 'from floor to ceiling,' a sense Implied in the better reading ' from the floor to the rafters ' ; cf . 6", wheref or 'walls' read 'rafters' of the ceiling. In Am 9» our EV has obscured the figure ' the floor of the sea.'

(6) Where 'floor' occurs in the sense of 'threshing-floor' (see Agricultuhe, § 3), the latter has been sub-stituted by RV except in three passages (Gn 50", Is 21'", Jl 2"). The same word (goren) appears as barnfloor (2 K 6", RV ' threshing-floor') and cornfloor (Hos 9' AV and RV). A. R. S. Kennedy.

FLOTTS. — See Bread, Food, § 2, Mill.

FLOWERS.— 1. nizzSn, only Ca 2i2. 2, ztz. Is 28'- ' 40", Job 142, 'blossoms' Nu 17*. 3. nizzah — used of the inconspicuous flowers of vine and olive. Is 18^, Job 1S». 4. perach. Ex 25»', Is 188, aV 'bud,' RV 'blossom,' Nah 1'. Flowers are one of the attractive features of Palestine: they come in the early spring (Ca 2f'), but fade all too soon, the brilliant display being a matter of but a few short weeks. Hence they are an appropriate symbol of the evanescence of human life (Job 142, Ps 1031s etc.). The 'liUes of the field' of Mt 628 may have been a comprehensive term for the brilliant and many-coloured anemones, the irises, the gladioli, etc.. which lend such enchantment to the hillsides in March and April. E. W. G. Mastehman.

FLUTE. — See Music and Musical Instruments.

FLUK, — The expression 'a bloody flux' (1611 'bloody-flixe') is used in AV for Gr. dyeenterion (RV 'dysentery'). This trans, is first found in Wyclif, who offers the alternative 'dissenterie, or flix.' See Medicine.

FLY.— 1. zebab, Ec 10', Is 7"; also Baal-zebub (wh. see]. 2. 'arSb, Ex 8" etc., the insects of one of the plagues of Egypt, thought by some to have been

FOOD

cockroaches. Flies of many kinds, mosquitoes, 'sand-flies,' etc., swarm in Palestine and Egypt. In summer any sweet preparation left uncovered is at once defiled by flies falling into it (Ec 10'). Flies carry ophthaJmia and infect food with the micro-organisms of other diseases, e.g. cholera, enteric fever, etc. They fre-quently deposit their eggs in uncleanly wounds and discharging ears, and these eggs develop into maggots. Special flies, in Africa at any rate, carry the trypanosoma, which produce fatal disease in cattle and 'sleeping sickness' in man. Mosquitoes, which may have been included in the 'arOb (the 'swarms of files') in Egypt, are now known to be the carriers of the poison of malaria, the greatest scourge of parts of Palestine.

E. W. G. Masterman.

FODDER (fim. Job 6' and Jg 1921 RV). See Pbov-ender.

FOLK.— This Eng. word is used in the NT indef-initely for 'persons,' there being no word in the Gr. (Mk 6', Jn 5', Ac 5"). But in the OT the word has the definite meaning of nation or people, even Pr 30" 'The conies are but a feeble folk,' having this meaning. In the metrical version of Ps 100', 'fiock' should be 'folk,' corresponding to 'people' in the prose version. So the author wrote —

'The Lord ye know is God in dede

With out our aide, he did us make; We are his folck, he doth us fede. And for his shepe, he doth us take.'

FOLLOW. — This Eng. verb means now no more than to come after, but in older Eng. it was often equivalent to pursue. Now it states no more than the relative place of two persons, formerly it expressed purpose or determination. 'Kndale translates Lv 26" 'ye shal flee when no man foloweth you,' and Dt 282* ' they [the diseases named] shall folowe the, intyll thou perishe.' In AV to follow is sometimes to imitate, as 2 Th 3' ' For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us.'

FOOD. — This article will deal only with food-stutEs, in other words, with the principal articles of food among the Hebrews in Bible times, the preparation and serving of these being reserved for the complementary article Meals.

1. The food of a typical Hebrew household in historical times was almost exclusively vegetarian. For all but the very rich the use of meat was confined to some special occasion, — a family festival, the visit of an honoured guest, a sacrificial meal at the local sanctuary, and the like. According to the author of the Priests' Code, indeed, the food of men and beasts alike was exclusively herbaceous in the period before the Deluge (Gn 12"), permission to eat the flesh of animals, under stipulation as to drawing off the blood, having been first accorded to Noah (O'"). In Isaiah's vision of the future, when 'the lion shall eat straw hke the ox' (11'), a return is contemplated to the idyllic conditions of the first age of all.

The growth of luxury under the monarchy (cf. Am 6"-and similar passages) is well illustrated by a comparison of 2 S 1728'- with 1 K 4M'-. In the former there is brought for the entertainment of David and his followers 'wheat and barley and meal and parched corn and beans and lentils and parched pulse [7 see p. 266, § 3] and honey and butter and sheep and cheese of kine'; while, according to the latter passage, Solomon's daily provision was ' thirty measures of fine flour and three-score measures of meal; ten fat oxen and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, besides harts and gazelles and roebucks and fatted fowl.'

2. The first place in the list of Hebrew food-stuffs must be given to the various cereals included under the general name of ' corn ' — in Amer. RV always ' grain ' — the two most important of which were wheat and barley. Millet (Ezk 4«) and spelt (see Fitches, Rie) are only casually mentioned. The most primitive

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