Besides the common use of this word, it is employed symbolically for to “consume, destroy:” they “eat up my people as they eat bread” (Psa. 14:4; compare Prov. 30:14; Hab. 3:14; 2 Tim. 2:17). Also for receiving, digesting, and delighting in God’s words: “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jer. 15:16). To eat together of the same bread or food is a token of friendship (Josh. 11:14; Psa. 41:9; Song of Sol. 5:1; John 13:18): and such an expression of intimacy is forbidden towards those walking disorderly (1 Cor. 5:11). It is used to express the satisfaction of doing the work that is before the soul: the Lord said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of” (John 4:32). Also to express appropriation to the eater of the death of Christ: “except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). (In John 6:51,53 there is eating for reception, φάγω; and in John 6:54,56-57, eating as a present thing for the maintenance of life, τρώγω.) In the Lord’s Supper the Christian eats that which is a symbol of the body of Christ (Matt. 26:26), and in eating he has communion with Christ’s death (1 Cor. 10:16).