Reference: Sop
American
Joh 13:26, a small portion of bread, dipped in sauce, wine, or some other liquid at table, Ru 2:14. Modern table utensils were unknown or little used by the ancients. The food was conveyed to the mouth of the thumb and fingers, and a choice morsel was often thus bestowed on a favored guest. Similar customs still prevail in Palestine. Jowett says, "There are set on the table in the evening two or three messes of stewed meat, vegetables, and sour milk. To me the privilege of a knife, spoon, and plate was granted; but the rest helped themselves immediately from the dish, in which five Arab fingers might be seen at once. Their bread, which is extremely thin, tearing and folding up like a sheet of paper, is used for rolling together a large mouthful, or sopping up the fluid and vegetables. When the master of the house found in the dish any dainty morsel, he took it out with his fingers, and put it to my mouth."
See Verses Found in Dictionary
Easton
a morsel of bread (Joh 13:26; comp. Ru 2:14). Our Lord took a piece of unleavened bread, and dipping it into the broth of bitter herbs at the Paschal meal, gave it to Judas. (Comp. Ru 2:14.)
See Verses Found in Dictionary
Hastings
Smith
Sop.
In eastern lands where our table utensils are unknown, the meat, with the broth, is brought upon the table in a large dish, and is eaten usually by means of pieces of bread clipped into the common dish. The bread so dipped is called. "It was such a piece of bread a sop dipped in broth that Jesus gave to Judas,
Joh 13:26
and again, in Matt 26:23 it is said "he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish," i.e. to make a sop by dipping a piece of bread into the central dish.