Cheese appears in the Bible as everyday country food. Young David is sent with “ten cheeses” for the captain over his brothers’ unit, along with a message to find out how his brothers are doing. Much later, when David is on the run, friends bring supplies to his weary company, including “honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine,” because they knew the people were hungry. Job even uses the picture in a question to God: “Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?” Look at 1 Samuel 17:18.
3 verses
And carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge.
And honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.
Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?
Matthew George Easton, 1897
(A.S. cese). This word occurs three times in the Authorized Version as the translation of three different Hebrew words: (1.) 1 Sam. 17:18, “ten cheeses;” i.e., ten sections of curd. (2.) 2 Sam. 17:29, “cheese of kine” = perhaps curdled milk of kine. The Vulgate version reads “fat calves.” (3.) Job 10:10, curdled milk is meant by the word.
William Smith, 1884
is mentioned only three times in the Bible, and on each occasion under a different name in the Hebrew. (1 Samuel 17:18; 2 Samuel 17:29; Job 10:10) It is difficult to decide how far these terms correspond with our notion of cheese, for they simply express various degrees of coagulation. Cheese is not at the present day common among the Bedouin Arabs, butter being decidedly preferred; but there is a substance closely corresponding to those mentioned in 1Sam 17, 2Sam 17, consisting of coagulated buttermilk, which is dried until it become quite hard, and is then ground; the Arabs eat it mixed with butter.