A very common and popular vegetable in Palestine, used from ancient times; they are the seeds of the Vicia faba. The bean plant, which is sown in Oct. or Nov., is in blossom in early spring, when its sweet perfume fills the air. Beans are gathered young and eaten, pod and seed together, cooked with meat; or the fully mature beans are cooked with fat or oil. As the native of Palestine takes little meat, such leguminous plants are a necessary ingredient of his diet (2Sa 17:28). In Eze 4:9 we read of beans as being mixed with barley, lentils, millet, and fitches to make bread.

E. W. G. Masterman.