Lentils
Plants and Trees in the Bible
The lentil is a low-branched plant with a weak stem. It has tendrils, like pumpkins and squashes, and pinkish flowers that develop into a pod like a bean. The pod is very short with only one seed inside, about the size of a small pea. In one type of lentil the pea is reddish brown, hence the reference to “red” stew in . The pods are often in pairs or sets of three. In the Holy Land lentils grow in the cold season (November-March).
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In the Bible
The Hebrew and Greek words for it, and every verse where each is used
עֲדָשָׁה ‘adashah · 4 verses
What it stands for
In the strange bread, made from six kinds of grains and legumes including lentils, was probably intended to show that food would become scarce and that the people would have to eat whatever they could find. The lentil is typically used in soups and stews, as it was when Jacob used it to trick his brother Esau into giving up his rights as the firstborn son. Lentils were among the foodstuffs brought to David by local people when he was pursued by Absalom.
More about it
Scholars are agreed that the Hebrew word ‘adashah refers to the Lentil Lens culinaris (formerly known as Lens esculenta). The Arabic word ‘adas, as well as several references in post-biblical Hebrew, confirm this identification, as does the Septuagint. Seeds found in excavations dating to the sixth or seventh millennium B.C. show that the lentil is one of the first species to be cultivated by humans. In those excavations lentils are often found together with seeds of wheat and barley.
Also in Pulses
Sources
Plants and Trees in the Bible, Animals in the Bible and Human-made Things in the Bible © United Bible Societies, 2025 (adapted from Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible by Robert Koops, All Creatures Great and Small: Living Things in the Bible by Edward R. Hope, and The Works of Their Hands: Man-made Things in the Bible by Ray Pritz), CC BY-SA 4.0; adapted for eRhema