LENTIL, ?????. Ge 25:34; 2Sa 17:28; 23:11; Eze 4:9, a sort of pulse; in the Septuagint ?????, and Vulgate lens. The lentils of Egypt were very much esteemed among the ancients. St. Austin says, they grow abundantly in Egypt, are much used as a food there, and those of Alexandria are considered particularly valuable. Dr. Shaw says, beans, lentils, kidney beans, and garvancos are the chief of their pulse kind. Beans, when boiled and stewed with oil and garlic, are the principal food of persons of all distinctions. Lentils are dressed in the same manner as beans, dissolving easily into a mass, and making a pottage of a chocolate colour. This, we find, was the "red pottage" which Esau, from thence called Edom, exchanged for his birthright.