Jeremiah 41:8 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

We have treasures in the field— Dr. Shaw tells us that in Barbary, when the grain is winnowed, they lodge it in mattamores or subterraneous repositories; two or three hundred of which are sometimes close to each other, the smallest holding four hundred bushels. These are very common in other parts of the East, and are in particular mentioned by Dr. Russel, as being in great numbers near Aleppo, about the villages; which renders travelling there in the night very dangerous, the entrance into them being often left open, when they are empty. The like method, it should seem, of keeping corn, obtains in the Holy Land; for Le Bruyn speaks of deep pits at Ramah, which he was told were designed for corn; and Rauwolf talks of three very large vaults at Joppa, actually used for the laying up of grain, when he was there. The treasures in the field of wheat, &c. which the ten men here proposed to Ishmael as the ransom for their lives, were doubtless laid up in the same kind of repositories. Dr. Shaw only speaks of the Arabs hiding corn in these mattamores. But as these ten Jews mentioned their having honey and oil in these repositories, so the author of the history of the piratical states of Barbary tells us, that it is usual with the Arabs, when they expect the armies of Algiers, to secure their corn, and other effects which are not portable, in subterraneous repositories, wandering about with their flocks till the troops are returned to their quarters. See the Observations, p. 420.