Topic
Fitches
4 passages cited, from 3 classic reference works.
These works date from 1884–1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Isaiah 28:25Easton · ISBE
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 28:27Easton · ISBE
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.
- Ezekiel 4:9Easton · ISBE
¶ Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days…
- Exodus 9:32Easton
But the wheat and the rie were not smitten: for they were not grown up.
In the reference works
Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) · 5 references
(Isa. 28:25, 27), the rendering of the Hebrew ketsah, “without doubt the Nigella sativa, a small annual of the order Ranunculacece, which grows wild in the Mediterranean countries, and is cultivated in Egypt and Syria for its seed.” It is rendered in margin of the Revised Version “black cummin.” The seeds are used as a condiment.
In Ezek. 4:9 this word is the rendering of the Hebrew kussemeth (incorrectly rendered “rye” in the Authorized Version of Ex. 9:32 and Isa. 28:25, but “spelt” in the Revised Version). The reading “fitches” here is an error; it should be “spelt.”
Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884) · 0 references
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 3 references
fich'-iz (the English word "fitch" is the same as "vetch"):
(1) qetsach (Isa 28:25,27; the Revised Version, margin has "black cummin" (Nigella sativa)). This is the "nutmeg flower," an annual herb (Natural Order, Ranunculaceae), the black seeds of which are sprinkled over some kinds of bread in Palestin. They were used as a condiment by the ancient Greeks and Romans. These seeds have a warm aromatic flavor and are carminative in their properties, assisting digestion. They, like all such plants which readily yield their seed, are still beaten out with rods. The contrast between the stouter staff for the "fitches" and the lighter rod for the cummin is all the more noticeable when the great similarity of the two seeds is noticed.
(2) kuccemim (pl.) (Eze 4:9) the Revised Version (British and American) "spelt" (which see).
E. W. G. Masterman
Texts: Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897); Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884); International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.