Wheat (σῖτος, σεμίδαλις)
Apart from the Gospels the only books in the NT which contain a reference to wheat are the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, and the Apocalypse. The reference in Acts (27:38) requires no comment. The operation there alluded to completed that begun in v. 18. In 1 Corinthians 15:37 it occurs in a simile introduced by St. Paul in his dissertation on the Resurrection. The general meaning of the passage is: Thou sowest not the body that shall appear-i.e. the bladed stem with ears of corn-but a naked grain. In Revelation 6:6, the Voice fixes the maximum price for the main food-stuffs. The denarius was the dai ly wage (cf. Matthew 20:2) and a χοῖνιξ of wheat the average daily allowance of the workman. Barley, being much cheaper, formed the main staple of food of the poor, and in NT times the proportionate value of these two different kinds of grain was probably as three to one as estimated here. The Greek measure χοῖνιξ was probably something under two pints. The proclamation is addressed to the nameless rider who represents Dearth, and is a prohibition of famine prices.
In the great dirge over the fall of Babylon in Revelation 18, reference is made to fine flour and wheat as two of the commodities for which the merchants of the earth are no longer able to find a market. The fine flour was no doubt imported for the wealthy. The word used, σεμίδαλις, is a ἅπαξ λεγ. in the NT. The wheat supply of Rome came largely from Egypt and was conveyed by ship from Alexandria. The land of it origin is a matter of speculation, but Mesopotamia, the enormous wheat-harvests of which were in ancient times proverbial, probably has as good a claim as any other country.
The knowledge of agriculture certainly goes back to pre-Semitic times, for grind-stones belonging to that period have been discovered (cf. the present writer’s Latest Light on Bible Lands, London, 1913, p. 213). Several varieties of wheat are grown in Palestine, of which the most common is the Triticum spelta. Two other important varieties are the Triticum compositum and the Triticum hybernum. Wheat has been an article of export from very early times (cf. Ezekiel 27:17, Acts 12:20). The principal wheat-growing district is the plain of the Ḥauran.
See, further, Harvest, Sickle.
Literature.-H. B. Tristram. Natural History of the Bible10, London, 1911, pp. 488-493; R. B. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles, do., 1901, p. 490; A. Robertson and A. Plummer, ICC, ‘First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians,’ Edinburgh, 1911, p. 369 f.; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John 2, London, 1907, pp. 88, 234; The Speaker’s Commentary, iii. [do., 1881] 367; W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 3 vols., do., 1881-86, passim; J. C. Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, do., 1903, p. 53; DCG ii. 821; SDB, p. 972; EBi iv. 5299 f.
P. S. P. Handcock.