'Meal' in the Bible

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Quickly, get ready three measures of fine meal, knead it and bake cakes.”

But when food was set before him, he said, “I will not eat until I have stated my business.” And Laban said, “Speak on.”

then the man shall bring his wife to the priest, and he shall bring as an offering for her, a tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he shall not pour oil on it nor put frankincense on it [the symbols of favor and joy], because it is a grain offering of jealousy, a memorial grain offering, a reminder of [the consequences of] wickedness.

The priest shall then have the woman stand before the Lord, and let the hair of the woman’s head hang loose, and put the memorial grain offering in her hands, which is the jealousy offering, and in the hand of the priest is to be the water of bitterness that brings a curse.

You shall lift up a cake made of the first of your [ground grain which has been made into] dough as an offering [to the Lord]; as an offering from the threshing floor, so shall you lift it up.

From the first of your dough (ground grain) you shall give to the Lord an offering throughout your generations.

But on the next day, the second day of the new moon, David’s place was empty [again]; and Saul said to Jonathan his son, “Why has the son of Jesse not come to the meal, either yesterday or today?”

brought beds, basins, pottery, wheat, barley, flour, roasted grain, broad beans, lentils, and [other] roasted grain,

Solomon’s food [for the royal household] for one day was thirty kors of finely milled flour, sixty kors of wheat flour,

But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar. See, I am gathering a few sticks so that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it [as our last meal] and die.”

For this is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted nor shall the jar of oil be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain [again] on the face of the earth.’”

The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, in accordance with the word of the Lord which He spoke through Elijah.

Now there came a day when Elisha went over to Shunem, where there was a prominent and influential woman, and she persuaded him to eat a meal. Afterward, whenever he passed by, he stopped there for a meal.

But he said, “Bring flour.” And he threw it into the pot and said, “Serve it for the people so that they may eat.” Then there was nothing harmful in the pot.

Also those who were [living] near them [from] as far as [the tribes of] Issachar, Zebulun, and Naphtali, brought food on donkeys, camels, mules, and oxen, abundant supplies of flour, cakes of figs and raisins, wine, [olive] oil, oxen, and sheep, for there was joy in Israel.

Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself; and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. See, I will give you the oxen also for burnt offerings and the threshing sledges (heavy wooden platforms) for wood and the wheat for the grain offering; I give it all.”

We will bring the first [and best] of our dough, our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the new wine and the [olive] oil to the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God, and the tithe of our ground to the Levites, for the Levites are the ones who receive the tithes in all the rural towns.

Let my wife grind [meal, like a bond slave] for another [man],And let others kneel down over her.

“Take millstones [as a female slave does] and grind meal;Remove your veil, strip off the skirt,Uncover the leg, cross the rivers [at the command of your captors].

Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones [grinding meal] and the light of the lamp [to light the night].

Now in the seventh month Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal family [of David] and one of the princes of the king, came [at the instigation of the Ammonites] with ten men to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam in Mizpah. As they were eating a meal together there in Mizpah,

Then he (the angel) said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers, which are opposite the separate area, are the holy chambers where the priests who are close to the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall place the most holy things—the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering—for the place is holy.

They shall eat the grain offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering; and every devoted thing (offering) in Israel [dedicated by a solemn vow to God] shall be theirs.

The first of all the first fruits of every kind, and every contribution and offering of every kind, from all your contributions and offerings, shall belong to the priests. You shall also give to the priest the first of your coarse meal and bread dough, so that a blessing may rest on your house.

and [you shall offer] one sheep out of every flock of two hundred from the watering places of Israel—for a grain offering, for a burnt offering, and for peace offerings to make atonement for [those who brought] them,” says the Lord God.

It shall be the prince’s responsibility to provide the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the drink offerings at the feasts, on the New Moons and on the Sabbaths, at all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel. He shall prepare and provide the sin offering, the grain offering, the burnt offering and the peace offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel.”

He shall provide as a grain offering [to be offered] with each bull an ephah [of grain], an ephah with each ram, and a hin of oil with each ephah [of grain].

In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month at the feast, he shall provide [offerings] like these for the seven days, as the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the oil.”

The grain offering shall be an ephah with the ram, and the grain offering with the lambs as much as he is able to give, and a hin of oil with an ephah.

And he shall provide a grain offering, an ephah with the bull and an ephah with the ram, and with the lambs as much as he is able, and a hin of oil with an ephah.

“At the feasts and the appointed festivals the grain offering shall be an ephah with a bull and an ephah with a ram, and with the lambs as much as one is able to give, and a hin of oil with an ephah.

Also you shall provide a grain offering with it morning by morning, one-sixth of an ephah with one-third of a hin of oil to sprinkle on the finely-milled flour. This is a perpetual ordinance for a continual grain offering to the Lord.

Thus they shall provide the lamb, the grain offering and the oil every morning as a continual burnt offering.”

He said to me, “This is the place where the priests shall boil (cook) the guilt offering and the sin offering, and where they shall bake the grain offering, so that they do not bring them out into the outer courtyard to transmit holiness to the people.”

For they sow the wind [in evil]And they reap the whirlwind [in disaster].The standing grain has no growth;It yields no grain.If it were to yield, strangers would swallow it up.

The [daily] grain offering and the drink offering are cut offFrom the house of the Lord;The priests mournWho minister to the Lord.

Clothe yourselves with sackclothAnd lament (cry out in grief), O priests;Wail, O ministers of the altar!Come, spend the night in sackcloth [and pray without ceasing],O ministers of my God,For the grain offering and the drink offeringAre withheld from the house of your God.

Who knows whether He will relent [and revoke your sentence],And leave a blessing behind Him,Even a grain offering and a drink offering [from the bounty He provides you]For the Lord your God?

He told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and worked into three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three peck measures of flour until it was all leavened.”

It happened one Sabbath, when He went for a meal at the house of one of the ruling Pharisees, that they were watching Him closely and carefully [hoping to entrap Him].

So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us, so that we may eat it.”

And say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, “Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?”’

but he became hungry and wanted something to eat. While the meal was being prepared he fell into a trance;

If one of the unbelievers invites you [to a meal at his home] and you want to go, eat whatever is served to you without asking questions [about its source] for the sake of your conscience.

and [see to it] that no one is immoral or godless like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.