Honey

What does a promised land taste like? God tells Moses he is bringing Israel up to “a land flowing with milk and honey,” and Leviticus 20:24 repeats the picture. Honey is food at its sweetest. Manna tasted “like wafers made with honey,” and the wise are warned that “It is not good to eat much honey.” The bridegroom in the Song of Solomon says “honey and milk are under thy tongue.” At the far end of the Bible, John the Baptist lives on “locusts and wild honey.” Honey is also something people bought and sold, for Ezekiel lists it among the goods brought to Tyre. Deuteronomy 8:8 names it with wheat, barley and olive oil.

11 verses

Exodus

Exodus 3:8

And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Exodus 16:31

And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

Leviticus

Leviticus 20:24

But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 8:8

A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

Deuteronomy 32:13

He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

2 Samuel

2 Samuel 17:29

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.

Proverbs

Proverbs 25:27

It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory.

Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon 4:11

Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

Isaiah

Isaiah 7:15

Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

Ezekiel

Ezekiel 27:17

Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.

Matthew

Matthew 3:4

And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

(1.) Heb. ya’ar, occurs only 1 Sam. 14:25, 27, 29; Cant. 5:1, where it denotes the honey of bees. Properly the word signifies a forest or copse, and refers to honey found in woods.

(2.) Nopheth, honey that drops (Ps. 19:10; Prov. 5:3; Cant. 4:11).

(3.) Debash denotes bee-honey (Judg. 14:8); but also frequently a vegetable honey distilled from trees (Gen. 43:11; Ezek. 27:17). In these passages it may probably mean “dibs,” or syrup of grapes, i.e., the juice of ripe grapes boiled down to one-third of its bulk.

(4.) Tsuph, the cells of the honey-comb full of honey (Prov. 16:24; Ps. 19:10).

(5.) “Wild honey” (Matt. 3:4) may have been the vegetable honey distilled from trees, but rather was honey stored by bees in rocks or in trees (Deut. 32:13; Ps. 81:16; 1 Sam. 14:25-29).

Read the full entry

Canaan was a “land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex. 3:8). Milk and honey were among the chief dainties in the earlier ages, as they are now among the Bedawin; and butter and honey are also mentioned among articles of food (Isa. 7:15). The ancients used honey instead of sugar (Ps. 119:103; Prov. 24:13); but when taken in great quantities it caused nausea, a fact referred to in Prov. 25:16, 17 to inculcate moderation in pleasures. Honey and milk also are put for sweet discourse (Cant. 4:11).

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

The Hebrew debash in the first place applied to the product of the bee, to which exclusively we give the name of honey. All travellers agree in describing Palestine as a land "flowing with milk and honey," (Exodus 3:8) bees being abundant even in the remote parts of the wilderness, where they deposit their honey in the crevices of rocks or in hollow trees. In some parts of northern Arabia the hills are so well stocked with bees that no sooner are hives placed than they are occupied. In the second place the term debash applies to a decoction of the juice of the grape, which is still called dibs , and which forms an article of commerce in the East, it was this, and not ordinary bee-honey, which Jacob sent to Joseph, (Genesis 43:11) and which the Tyrians purchased from Palestine. (Ezekiel 27:17) A third kind has been described by some writers as a "vegetable" honey, by which is meant the exudations of certain trees and shrubs, such as the Tamarix mannifera , found in the peninsula of Sinai, or the stunted oaks of Luristan and Mesopotamia . The honey which Jonathan ate in the wood, (1 Samuel 14:25) and the "wild honey" which supported John the Baptist, (Matthew 3:42) have been referred to this species. But it was probably the honey of wild bees.