Millet
MILLET
MILLET , the Panicum miliaceum, a summer plant of the Gramineae family, whose small seeds are utilized as fodder or are sometimes ground to produce a poor quality flour. It is regarded by some as identical with do?an, one of the ingredients of the flour mixture that Ezekiel was commanded to eat for 390 days (Ezek. 4:9). The probability is, however, that do?an is *sorghum. Do?an is mentioned a number of times in rabbinic literature together with orez ("rice"), peragim, and shumshemin ("sesame"; Shev. 2:7), as summer plants from which occasionally bread is made (?al. 1:4). Peragim cannot therefore be poppy as is stated in the Arukh of Nathan b. Jehiel (and as the word is used in modern Hebrew), since the poppy is a winter plant and is used only as a spice. From Syrian Aramaic it would seem that peragim is to be identified with millet, an identification compatible with the talmudic sources.
bibliography:
Loew, Flora, 1 (1928), 738–40; H.N. and A.L. Moldenke, Plants of the Bible (1952), index; J. Feliks, Olam ha-?ome'a? ha-Mikra'i (19682), 154f. add. bibliography: Feliks, Ha-?ome'a?, 46.
[Jehuda Feliks]