Reference: Butter
American
The Hebrew word usually rendered butter denotes, properly, sour or curdled milk, Ge 18:8; Jg 5:25; Job 20:17. This last is a favorite beverage in the East to the present day. Burckhardt, when crossing the desert from the country south of the Dead sea to Egypt, says, "Besides flour, I carried some butter and dried leben, (sour milk,) which, when dissolved in water, not only forms a refreshing beverage, but is much to be recommended as a preservative of health when travelling in summer." Yet butter may have been known to the Hebrews. It is much used by the Arabs and Syrians at the present day, and is made by pouring the milk into the common goatskin bottle, suspending this from the tent-poles, and swinging it to and fro with a jerk, until the process is completed. Still it is not certain that the Hebrew word rendered butter ever denotes that article. Even in Pr 30:33 we may render, "The pressing of milk bringeth forth cheese;" and everywhere else the rendering "curd," or "curdled milk," would be appropriate.
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Easton
(Heb. hemah), curdled milk (Ge 18:8; Jg 5:25; 2Sa 17:29), or butter in the form of the skim of hot milk or cream, called by the Arabs kaimak, a semi-fluid (Job 20:17; 29:6; De 32:14). The words of Pr 30:33 have been rendered by some "the pressure [not churning] of milk bringeth forth cheese."
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Fausets
cheme'ah, from an Arabic root meaning "coagulated." Curdled milk, curds, butter, and cheese (Jg 5:25; 2Sa 17:29). But the butter in the East is more fluid and less solid than ours. The milk is put in a whole goatskin bag, sewed up, and hung on a frame so as to swing to and fro. The fluidity explains Job 20:17, "brooks of honey and butter"; Job 29:6, "I washed my steps with butter." Isa 7:15,22, "butter and honey shall he eat": besides these being the usual food for children, and so in the case of the prophetess' child typifying the reality of Christ's humanity, which stooped to the ordinary food of infants, a state of distress over the land is implied, when through the invaders milk and honey, things produced spontaneously, should be the only abundant food. In Ps 55:21 the present reading is properly "smooth are the butter-masses (i.e. sweetness) of his mouth." The Chaldee version translated as KJV Gesenius explains Pr 30:33, "the pressure (not 'churning') of milk bringeth forth cheese."
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Hastings
Morish
This was curdled milk. Ge 18:8; De 32:14. Jael brought Sisera 'butter' to drink, Jg 5:25; and Job in Job 29:6 speaks of his steps being washed with butter when the Almighty was with him in prosperity. The promised land was to flow with milk and honey: cf. Job 20:17. Curdled milk is a common beverage in the East, and when mixed with honey is very agreeable.
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Smith
Butter.
Curdled milk.
Ge 18:8; De 32:14; Jg 5:25; Job 20:17
Milk is generally offered to travellers in Palestine in a curdled or sour state, leben, thick, almost like butter. Hasselquist describes the method of making butter employed by the Arab women: "they made butter in a leather bag, hung on three poles erected for the purpose, in the form of a cone, and drawn to and fro by two women."
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Watsons
BUTTER is taken in Scripture, as it has been almost perpetually in the east, for cream or liquid butter, Pr 30:33; 2Sa 17:29. The ancient way of making butter in Arabia and Palestine was probably nearly the same as is still practised by the Bedoween Arabs, and Moors in Barbary, and which is thus described by Dr. Shaw: "Their method of making butter is by putting the milk or cream into a goat's skin turned inside out, which they suspend from one side of the tent to the other; and then pressing it to and fro in one uniform direction, they quickly separate the unctious and wheyey parts. In the Levant they tread upon the skin with their feet, which produces the same effect." The last method of separating the butter from the milk, perhaps may throw light upon a passage in Job of some difficulty: "When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil," Job 31:6. The method of making butter in the east illustrates the conduct of Jael, the wife of Heber, described in the book of Judges: "And Sisera said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink, for I am thirsty: and she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him." In the song of Deborah, the statement is repeated: "He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish," Jg 4:19; 5:25. The word ????, which our translators rendered butter, properly signifies cream; which is undoubtedly the meaning of it in this passage: for Sisera complained of thirst, and asked a little water to quench it;