1 Samuel 8:13

13 Your daughters will have to make perfumes for him and work as his cooks and his bakers.

1 Samuel 8:13 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 8:13

And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries
Such as deal in spices, and mix them, and make them up in various forms very agreeable to the taste. Men are commonly in our countries and times employed in such arts, but it seems this was the business of women in those times and places. Some versions ^F4 render it "unguentariae", makers or sellers of ointments, and such there were in some nations ^F5, such was Lydia in Juvenal ^F6;

and to be cooks;
to dress all sorts of food, especially what were boiled, as the word signifies: and to be bakers; to make and bake bread, which though with us is the work of men, yet in the eastern countries was usually done by women; (See Gill on Leviticus 26:26).

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 So V. L. and Tigurine.
F5 Vid. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 5.
F6 Satyr. 2. ver. 141. Vid. Turnebi Adversar. l. 15. c. 17.

1 Samuel 8:13 In-Context

11 "This is how your king will treat you," Samuel explained. "He will make soldiers of your sons; some of them will serve in his war chariots, others in his cavalry, and others will run before his chariots.

12 He will make some of them officers in charge of a thousand men, and others in charge of fifty men. Your sons will have to plow his fields, harvest his crops, and make his weapons and the equipment for his chariots.

13 Your daughters will have to make perfumes for him and work as his cooks and his bakers.

14 He will take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves, and give them to his officials.

15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your grapes for his court officers and other officials.