1. The word here rendered butter (chemah) is said usually to signify curdled milk. It is also supposed that it was this which Jael gave to Sisera “in a lordly dish” (Judges 5:2525He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. (Judges 5:25)). It is at this day frequently used in eastern countries under the name of leben.
2. A description of an Arab feast, as given by modern travelers, will illustrate the mode of preparing and eating food. The meat is boiled with camel’s milk, and with wheat which has been previously boiled and then dried in the sun. It is served up in a large wooden dish, in the center of which the boiled wheat is placed, and the meat around the edge. A wooden bowl containing the melted fat of the animal is pressed down in the midst of the boiled wheat, and every morsel is dipped into this melted fat before being swallowed. A bowl of camel’s milk is handed round after the meal.
It is not certain that milk was formerly used in cooking meat, as is here seen to be the modern Bedawin custom.
3. It is common still in the East to see travelers and guests eating under the shade of trees.