A.M.

2256. B.C.

1748. mandrakes. The mandrake may be the Hebrew dudaim: it is so rendered by all the ancient versions, and is a species of melon, of an agreeable odour. Hasselquist, speaking of Nazareth in Galilee, says, 'What I found most remarkable at this village was the great number of mandrakes which grew in a vale below it. I had not the pleasure of seeing this plant in blossom, the fruit now (May

5th, O. S.) hanging ripe on the stem, which lay withered on the ground. From the season in which this mandrake blossoms and ripens fruit, one might form a conjecture that it was Rachel's dudaim. These were brought her in the wheat harvest, which in Galilee is in the month of May, about this time, and the mandrake was now in fruit.' The Abbee Mariti describes it as growing 'low like a lettuce, to which its leaves have a great resemblance, except that they have a dark green colour. The flowers are purple, and the root is for the most part forked. The fruit, when ripe in the beginning of May, is of the size and colour of a small apple, exceedingly ruddy, and of a most agreeable odour. Our guide thought us fools for suspecting it to be unwholesome.'

Songs 7:13 The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for you...

Give me.

Genesis 25:30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray you, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.