POULTRY.
Poultry plentiful in Palestine at the present day—The Domestic Fowl unknown in the early times of Israel—The eating and gathering of eggs—References to Poultry in the New Testament—The egg and the scorpion—The fatted fowl of Solomon—The hen brooding over her eggs—Poultry prohibited within Jerusalem—The cock-crowing.
At the present day, poultry are plentiful both in Palestine and Syria, and that they were bred in the time of the Apostles is evident from one or two references which are made by our Lord. How long the Domestic Fowl had been known to the Jews is extremely uncertain, and we have very little to guide us in our search.
That it was unknown to the Jews during the earlier period of their history is evident from the utter silence of the Old Testament on the subject. A bird so conspicuous and so plentiful would certainly have been mentioned in the Law of Moses had it been known to the Israelites; but, in all its minute and detailed provisions, the Law is silent on the subject.
Neither the bird itself nor its eggs are mentioned, although there are a few references to eggs, without signifying the bird which laid them. The humane provision in Deut. xxii. 6, 7, refers not to a domesticated, but to a wild bird: "If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dams sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: but thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, that thou mayest prolong thy days."
That eggs were used for food, is seen from Job vi. 6: "Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?" So in Isa. lix. 5: "They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth."
There is another passage in the same book which refers to the gathering of eggs as mentioned in Deut. xxii. "And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth" (Isa. x. 14). The well-known passage in Luke xi. 11, 12, however, evidently refers to the ordinary hen's egg, which was used then for food just as is the case at the present day: "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
"Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?"
There is but one passage in the Old Testament which has ever been conjectured to refer to the Domestic Fowl. It occurs in 1 Kings iv. 22, 23, among the list of the daily provision of Solomon's household: "And Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal,
"Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallow-deer, and fatted fowl."