Isaiah Explained God's Care Using Cummin As His Example

Cummin

Hebrew: cammon

Cuminum cyminum

Cummin is a fruit or seed grown for a spice, used to make a condiment that is boiled in messes and stews, and bruised to mix with bread. It is an umbelliferous plant, similar to fennel cultivated in the East (Tristram, Natural History). The plant is an annual with pinkish-white blooms. Seeds of the cummin plant are warmly bitter with an aromatic flavor. Native to eastern Mediterranean lands, when harvested it was threshed with sticks. The Maltese still grow it in this manner. Isaiah, in Chapter 28, wrote about this unusual, rare method of threshing. Walker (All the Plants of the Bible), notes the reason for this peculiar type of harvesting is because the fruit would be ruined if it were processed otherwise. Apparently, it is a very delicate plant. She says the plant is a very small one, about 12 inches high. She describes its finely cut leaves. Furthermore, she says cummin is not found wild, and is valued for medicinal use. Kammon is a village near Acre and is the origin of this plant's name.

The NKJV also mentions black cummin, which is translated dill (RSV, NEB, NASB), caraway (NIV), fitches (KJV) and holm tree (NRSV).

Jesus spoke of cummin to the scribes: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint... and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith; these ought ye to have done..." Matthew 23:23.

Isaiah 28:25 (KJV) When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?

Isaiah 28:26 (KJV) For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.

Isaiah 28:27 (KJV) For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.

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