Israelites commonly used a cubit of about 17.5 inches (c. 44.5 centimeters), and calculations in this publication are figured accordingly. The Siloam Inscription, for instance, gives 1,200 cubits as the length of the water tunnel built by King Hezekiah. According to the most accurate modern measurement, this tunnel is 1,749 feet (533.1 meters) long. Thus, when taken at face value, these figures yield a cubit of 17.49 inches (44.4 centimeters). Also, numerous buildings and enclosures excavated in Palestine can be measured in whole numbers of this unit, giving further basis for reckoning the cubit at 17.5 inches.

Evidently the Israelites also used a larger cubit that was one handbreadth (c. 2.9 inches, 7.4 centimeters) longer than the “common” cubit. This larger cubit of about 20.4 inches (51.8 centimeters) figured in the measurements of Ezekiel’s visionary temple.—Ezek. 40:5.

Cubit measuring sticks found in Egypt show a cubit of 17.7 inches (45 centimeters) and one of 20.67 inches (52.5 centimeters).

CUCKOO

[Heb., bar·bu·rimʹ (plural)].

This name occurs only once in the Bible, at 1 Kings 4:23 where the list of daily provisions of food for Solomon’s court includes “fattened cuckoos [bar·bu·rimʹ].” (JB; NW) While AV, RS and other versions here read “fatted fowl,” bar·bu·rimʹ seems to refer to a specific kind of bird rather than being simply a general term. Though some have identified it with the capon, the guinea hen, or the goose, lexicographers Koehler and Baumgartner (Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, p. 147) suggest the “cuckoo,” and this seems to be indicated by the Arabic name for that bird, namely ʼabu burbur. The Hebrew name, like the English name, is evidently in imitation of the bird’s call, since that of the female cuckoo is said to be a chuckling sound like that of “bubbling water with guttural intonation.”

The common cuckoo and the great spotted cuckoo both pass through Palestine on their northern migration, arriving in early March. The cuckoo is a moderate-sized bird, resembling a small hawk, with a slightly curved, sharp-pointed beak. The head is usually gray, the long, pointed wings are brown, the long tail is rounded, and the underbelly and thighs are gray or brown and spotted or barred.

While some consider the cuckoo to be a rather small bird to be used on Solomon’s menu, it may be noted that even plucked sparrows were anciently sold in Eastern markets. (Matt. 10:29) Additionally, these cuckoos were “fattened” ones, and concerning such The American Cyclopoedia (1883, Vol. V, p. 557) says: “In autumn they are fat and esteemed as food; the ancients were very partial to them, and their flesh was supposed to have valuable medicinal properties.” The Romans are known to have eaten stuffed cuckoos, and cuckoos are said to be considered a delicacy even till this day in Italy and Greece.

While the “cuckow” is included in the King James Version as among the unclean birds, at Leviticus 11:16 and Deuteronomy 14:15, this translation (of the Hebrew shaʹhhaph) is no longer considered acceptable. (See GULL.) The cuckoo is neither a carrion eater nor a bird of prey, but a valuable consumer of insects. It was legally “clean” and fit for use on the royal table.

Some, but not all, types of cuckoo have parasitical habits in their egg-laying, making use of the nests of other birds and leaving one egg in each of several nests for the foster-parent birds to hatch and care for. Quite amazing is the fact that, even though the parent birds have already migrated to northern lands, and even though hatched by non-migrating birds, the orphaned young cuckoos, on reaching the point of flying, will unhesitatingly take off on migration, in some cases unerringly traveling up to 2,150 miles (3,459 kilometers), to join the parent birds that have preceded them.

CUCUMBER

[Heb., plural, quish·shu·ʼimʹ; miq·shahʹ, cucumber field].

Among the foods of Egypt for which the complaining Israelites and mixed crowd, now tired of the daily diet of manna, expressed great longing were the cucumbers, along with watermelons, leeks, onions and garlic. (Num. 11:5) Some scholars, viewing the cucumber as too ordinary a food to provoke such longing, prefer to render the Hebrew term as “melon” (JB), suggesting the muskmelon (Cucumis melo) as a likely identification. However, the evidence from languages that are cognate with Hebrew, as well as that from early translations, points to the cucumber, and its popularity to the present time among people of the Near East would likewise seem to substantiate such identification.

The cucumber grows as a long trailing vine bearing yellow or whitish flowers. The fruit of the common cucumber (Cucumis sativus) has a smooth, green to blue-green rind, and greenish-white seedy pulp inside. Another variety, Cucumis chate, is particularly associated with Egypt and produces a fruit that is much longer and more slender than the common cucumber but often less juicy; the rind is hairy and of a mottled or striped green color. While the latter type of cucumber is more hardy, both kinds flourish best in warm climate and with ample moisture. The well-watered banks of the Nile and the dew-moistened land of Palestine, combined with the heat of the sun, provide ideal growing conditions for the plant, and both varieties mentioned are extensively cultivated in these countries.

It was customary to erect a booth or hut in vegetable gardens or in vineyards as a shelter for the watchman who guarded the products of the fields against thieves and marauding animals. If like those used in recent times, the hut was a rather frail structure formed of four upright poles driven into the earth, with crosspieces to connect them. Branches were used to form the roof and sides, these sometimes being wattled (that is, the twigs and slender branches were interwoven), while the main joints of the structure were tied together with withes (flexible twigs used as rope). Once the growing season ends, these huts are deserted and, as the autumn winds and rain begin, they may sag or even collapse. Thus, in describing the desolation due to come upon the apostate people of Judah, Isaiah graphically depicted them as “left remaining like a booth in a vineyard, like a lookout hut in a field of cucumbers.”—Isa. 1:8.

Pillars of stones, or poles, or other devices were also placed in the cultivated fields to scare off the animals, and to such a mute inanimate “scarecrow of a cucumber field” the prophet Jeremiah likened the images made by the idolatrous nations.—Jer. 10:5.

CUD

The food brought up from the digestive system of an animal to be chewed again. Chewing the cud, along with split and cleft hoofs, were requirements of the Mosaic law for animals to be considered clean for eating. “Clean” cud-chewing animals included the stag, gazelle, roebuck, antelope, chamois, domestic and wild cattle, sheep and goats. This classification excluded the camel, rock badger and hare or rabbit, for though they chewed the cud, their hoofs were not split. (Lev. 11:1-8, 26; Deut. 14:4-8) Some commentators claim that clawless cud-chewing animals are usually cleaner in their eating habits, and their twice-chewed food is digested more thoroughly, so that if poisonous plants are eaten, much of the poison is neutralized or removed by the complex chemistry involved in the longer digestive process.

The process of cud chewing is one of the interesting marvels of creation, The majority of cud-chewing animals have three or four compartments in their stomach and generally cycle their food in a similar pattern. Most of the food they eat passes only partially chewed into the first cavity, and from there into the second, where it is softened and shaped into round cuds. When the animal has stopped grazing and is resting, muscular contraction forces the cuds back into the mouth for rechewing and further mixing with saliva. When swallowed the second time, the food goes through the first and second compartments into the third, and finally into the fourth to complete digestion.

THE HARE A CUD CHEWER

The Scriptural reference to the hare as a cud chewer has frequently been doubted and severely attacked by some critics of the Bible. However, in the eighteenth century, English poet William Cowper, who had at length observed his domestic rabbits, commented that they “chewed the cud all day till evening.” Linnaeus, famed naturalist of the same century, believed that rabbits chewed the cud. But it remained for others to supply more scientific data. Frenchman Morot discovered in 1882 that rabbits re-ingest up to 90 percent of their daily intake. Concerning the hare, Ivan T. Sanderson in a recent publication remarks: “One of the most extraordinary [habits], to our way of thinking, is their method of digestion. This is not unique to Leporids [hares, rabbits] and is now known to occur in many Rodents. When fresh green food, as opposed to dessicated [dried] winter forage, is available, the animals gobble it up voraciously and then excrete it around their home lairs in a semi-digested form. After some time this is then re-eaten, and the process may be repeated more than once. In the Common Rabbit, it appears that only the fully grown adults indulge this practice.”—Living Mammals of the World, p. 114.

Certain British scientists of this century made close observations of the rabbits’ habits under careful controls and the results they obtained were published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1940, Vol. 110, pp. 159-163. Briefly this is the way the hare re-ingests its food: “If a rabbit eats a breakfast of fresh food it passes through the stomach into the small intestine, leaving behind in the cardiac end of the stomach some 40 or 50 grams of pellets that were already present when the fresh food was eaten. From the small intestine the morning meal enters the caecum or blind end of the large intestine and there remains for a period of time. During the day the pellets descend, and in the intestines the bacterial protein in them is digested. When they reach the large intestine they bypass the material in the caecum and go on into the colon where the excess moisture is absorbed to produce the familiar dry beans or droppings that are cast away.

“This phase of the cycle completed, the material stored in the dead end of the caecum next enters the colon, but instead of having all the moisture absorbed it reaches the anus in a rather soft condition. It is in pellet form with each coated with a tough layer of mucus to prevent them from sticking together. Now when these pellets reach the anus, instead of being cast away, the rabbit doubles up and takes them into the mouth and stores them away in the cardiac end of the stomach until another meal has been eaten. In this way the special rhythmic cycle is completed and most of the food has passed a second time through the digestive tract.”—Awake!, April 22, 1951, pp. 27, 28.

Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, Head Curator, Department of Zoology of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., in commenting on these findings, wrote: “There seems to be no reason to doubt the authenticity of the reports of various workers that rabbits customarily store semi-digested food in the caecum and that is later reingested and passes a second time through the digestive tract.” He also observed that here is an explanation for “the phenomenally large caecum of rabbits as compared with most other mammals.”

CUMMIN

[Heb., kam·monʹ, Gr., kyʹmi·non]; Black Cummin [Heb., qeʹtsahh].

The English word “cummin” is derived from the Hebrew through Greek and Latin. The cummin plant (Cuminum cyminum, L.) is of the carrot family, growing about one to two feet (.3 to .6 meter) high, with long, slender leaves and umbels (bouquetlike clusters) of small pink or white flowers growing at the ends of the upward-rising branches. The plant is best known for its pungently aromatic seeds, used in Near Eastern and other countries as a spice for flavoring bread, cakes, stews, and even liquors. Caraway seeds, which the cummin seeds resemble in flavor and appearance, have since become more commonly used than cummin due to being milder and of greater nutritive value.

Mentioned along with the cummin at Isaiah 28:25, 27 is the plant described by the Hebrew word qeʹtsahh. It has been variously identified by translators as “fitches” (AV), “fennel” (Mo), and “dill” (AT; RS); but the “black cummin” (JP; NW) seems to be favored by the context and also by the corresponding name in Arabic (qazha). Despite its English name, black cummin (Nigella sativa, L.) is not classified botanically with the cummin plant, and though known as “the nutmeg flower,” it likewise differs from the cultivated nutmeg. It is of the buttercup family, grows about the same height as the cummin, has similar feathery leaves, but blossoms with individual attractive white to blue petaled flowers. The seed vessels have interior compartments, and the tiny black seeds, smaller than the cummin, are acrid as well as aromatic, and are used on foods as a rather peppery seasoning. They were a favorite spice of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Though neither the cummin nor the black cummin are widely cultivated in the Palestine region today, in Bible times they were more popular there. Jehovah through the prophet Isaiah describes the Israelite farmer’s scattering seeds broadcast over the plowed land, while giving greater care to the sowing of the more valuable grains, such as wheat, millet and barley. He likewise shows that after harvesting, the threshing of the seeds of the cummin and black cummin plants was not done with heavy wheels or rollers of threshing instruments, but was accomplished by beating the seed capsules with a staff or, for the stouter pods of the black cummin, a rod so as not to damage the small tender seeds.

Coming, as it does, after Jehovah’s exhortation to the people of Israel to cease scoffing in view of the imminent extermination facing the northern kingdom, this illustration apparently was given to show that the people had the option of either responding to the disciplinary beating by Jehovah’s rod or of being subjected to severe and incessant threshing as under the crushing weight of a heavy rollered wagon.—Isa. 28:22-29.

Under the Mosaic law, the Israelites were to pay the tithe or tenth “of all the produce of your seed,” which would seem to include all cultivated crops. (Deut. 14:22; Lev. 27:30) In Jesus’ day the Pharisees were scrupulously careful to pay the tenth of such small products as mint, dill and cummin (all marketable commodities), but were guilty of passing over the more serious obligations. (Matt. 23:23; compare Luke 11:42.) It is of interest to note the ancient Greeks’ use of the word ky·mi·no·priʹstes (literally, “cummin-splitter”) to mean a “skinflint.”