PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 127 



But when 'tis said that he made choice of the diet 

 of pulse and water, whether he strictly confined unto a 

 leguminous food, according to the vulgar translation, 

 some doubt may be raised from the original word 

 zeragnim, which signifies seminalia, and is so set down 

 in the margin of Arias Montanus ; and the Greek 

 word spermata, generally expressing seeds, may signify 

 any edulious or cerealious grains beside ocnrpta or 

 leguminous seeds. 



Yet, if he strictly made choice of a leguminous food, 

 and water, instead of his portion from the king's table, 

 he handsomely declined the diet which might have 

 been put upon him, and particularly that which was 

 called the potibasis of the king, which, as Athenseus 

 informeth, implied the bread of the king, made of 

 barley and wheat, and the wine of Cyprus, which he 

 drank in an oval cup. And, therefore, distinctly from 

 that he chose plain fare of water, and the gross diet of 

 pulse, and that, perhaps, not made into bread, but 

 parched and tempered with water. 



1 7. Whether in the sermon of the mount, the lilies 

 of the field did point at the proper lilies, or whether 

 those flowers grew wild in the place where our Saviour 

 preached, some doubt may be made ; because xpivov, 



