Shmuel Alef 8:13

13 And he will take your banot to be perfumers, and to be tabakhot (cooks) and ofe’ot (bakers).

Shmuel Alef 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.

Shmuel Alef 8:13 In-Context

11 And he said, This will be the mishpat hamelech that shall reign over you: he will take your banim, and appoint them for himself for his merkavah and his parashim; and some shall run before his merkavah.

12 And he will appoint for him sarei elafim, and sarei chamishim and will set them to plow his ground, and to reap his katzir (harvest), and to make his instruments of war, and his chariot equipment.

13 And he will take your banot to be perfumers, and to be tabakhot (cooks) and ofe’ot (bakers).

14 And he will take your fields, and your kramim (vineyards), and your olive groves, even the best of them, and give them to his avadim.

15 And he will take the tenth of your zera, and of your kramim (vines), and give to his officers, and to his avadim.