wisemenpray said:
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Thank you for your explanation. In Matthew chapter 12 verse 1 : "At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat." Am I to interpret
"ears of corn" as ears of wheat, barley & grain?
Most likely Barley, as that was the primary food crop of the poor as far as I am aware; but it may also have been wheat, as Jesus' point is that He is Lord of the Sabbath and references the consecrated Shewbread, which was made of wheat. Ears of corn references the ears of whatever grain crop was planted in that field, for which Barley and Wheat have the strongest claim. Secondarily perhaps millet or rye, though much less likely, but they were known though not as often planted.
Wheat/grain and barley are used in Reve 6 concerning Famine,
as is the denari, which was early centuries Roman currency.
Interesting
Joel 1:11
Be ashamed, you farmers, Wail, you vinedressers,
For
the wheat and the barley; Because the harvest of the field has perished.
Revelation 6:6 And I hear a voice in midst of the four living-ones saying: "
measure/choenix of grain/wheat a denari and
three measures/choenix of barley a denari,
and the oil and the wine no you should be injuring".
Revelation 6:6 Commentaries:
Pulpit Commentary
A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; a choenix of wheat for a denarius, and three choenixes of barley for a denarius. The choenix appears to have been the food allotted to one man for a day; while the denarius was the pay of a soldier or of a common labourer for one day (Matthew 20:2, "He agreed with the labourers for a penny a day," and Tacitus, 'Ann.,' 1:17, 26, "Ut denarius diurnum stipendium foret." Cf. Tobit 5:14, where drachma is equivalent to denarius). The choenix was the eighth part of the modius, and a denarius would usually purchase a modius of wheat.
The price given, therefore,
denotes great scarcity, though not an entire absence of food, since a man's wages would barely suffice to obtain him food.
Barley, which was the coarser food, was obtainable at one third of the price, which would allow a man to feed a family, though with difficulty.
A season of great scarcity is therefore predicted, though in his wrath God remembers mercy (cf. the judgments threatened in Leviticus 26:23-26, viz. the sword, pestilence, and famine; also the expression, "
They shall deliver you your bread again by weight").
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One example of that is during the siege of 1st century Jerusalem in 70ad which Jewish historian Josephus recorded.
The Destruction of Jerusalem - George Peter Holford, 1805AD
The dead bodies of priests and worshipers, both natives and foreigners were heaped together, and a lake of blood stagnated in the sacred courts. John of Gischala, who headed one of the factions,
burnt storehouses full of provisions; and Simon, his great antagonist, who headed another of them, soon afterwards followed his example.
Thus they cut the very sinews of their own strength. At this critical and alarming c onjuncture, intelligence arrived that
the Roman army was approaching the city. The Jews were petrified with astonishment and fear ;
.........
Meanwhile the horrors of famine grew still more melancholy and afflictive.
The Jews, for want of food were at length compelled to eat their belts, their sandals, the skins of their shields, dried grass, and even the ordure of oxen. In the depth or this horrible extremity, a Jewess of noble family urged by the intolerable cravings of hunger, slew her infant child, and prepared it for a meal ;........
While
famine continued thus to spread its destructive rage through the city, the Romans, after many ineffectual attempts, at length succeeded in demolishing part of the inner wall, possessed themselves of the great tower of Antonia, and advanced towards the Temple, which Titus, in a council of war had determined to preserve as an ornament to the empire,
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As a result of
torment of famine, men would seek death to escape it as shown in another verse of Revelation
Revelation 9:6
And in those days the men shall be seeking the death, and not no shall be finding it;
and shall be desiring/yearning<1937> to be dying, and the death is fleeing from them.
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The Destruction of Jerusalem - George Peter Holford, 1805AD
History records few events more generally interesting than the destruction of Jerusalem, and the subversion of the Jewish state, by the arms of the Romans. -- Their intimate connexion with the dissolution of the Levitical economy, and the establishment of Christianity in the world ; the striking verification which they afford of so many of the prophecies, both of the Old and New Testament, and the powerful arguments of the divine authority of the Scriptures which are thence derived...................
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A good utube vid of that event. Best viewed full screen
