Provender is fodder or prepared feed for animals, including straw, bran, vetch, hay, or feed mixed with salt or aromatic herbs.
Definition
Provender is fodder or prepared feed for cattle and other animals. It may include straw, bran, vetch, hay, or fodder mixed with salt or aromatic herbs. The term can refer broadly to food supplied for animals rather than to one particular kind of feed.
Biblical Usage
Biblical references use provender for the food provided for animals, including fodder placed before Abraham’s visitors’ animals, feed for Joseph’s brothers’ beasts, and food given to an animal used for travel. Job and Isaiah use the term for fodder, including salted or savory feed.
Historical Background
In Palestine, ordinary provender included tibn, straw broken on the threshing floor; kursenneh, or vetch, especially for camels and milch cows; bran, particularly for fattening and in cold weather; and occasional hay made from dried grass and herbs after the rains.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>prov'-en-der</p><p>(1) micpo', from obsolete capha', "to feed," fodder for cattle in general (Ge 24:25,32; 42:27; Jud 19:19,21);</p><p>(2) belil, from balal, "to mix": "Loweth the ox over his fodder?" (Job 6:5); belil chamits: "The young asses that till the ground shall eat savory (Hebrew "salted") provender" (Isa 30:24); this is fodder mixed with salt or aromatic herbs): The ordinary provender in Palestine, besides fresh pasturage, is tibn, i.e. straw broken on the threshing floor, kursenneh (Vetch, Vicia errilia), given especially to camels and milch cows; bran, for fattening and especially in cold weather; and, occasionally, hay made from the dried mixed grass and herbs which spring up luxuriously after the rains. The Circassian colonists East of the Jordan are teaching their neighbors the value of this food, so long neglected.</p><p>E. W. G. Masterman</p>
