Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots [for] their meat.
Ver. 4. Who cut up mallows by the bushes] Pitiful poor fare they are glad of; not so good as that of the Baptist, locusts and wild honey, Matthew 3:4, but mallows, which, together with asphodelus, Hesiod mentioneth as poor folk's fare. Tremellius rendereth it, Herbas e salsilagine cum stirpibus, salt, and bitter herbs and stalks; Brentius rendereth it, nettles; some take it for samphire, which is a kind of sea mallows, or sea purslain. The Hebrew word comes from another that signifieth salt; and sounds like the Latin malva, and the English mallows. Coarse and homely provision the wretches were glad to make use of, to appease the cruel hunger that devoured them, Ut famem quoquomodo sedarent (Merc.). And this hath been sometimes the case of better men; as of those worthies, who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, Hebrews 11:38. The Duke of Lorrain had proscribed some thousands of his Protestant subjects, who were thereby forced to feed upon leaves of trees and grass of the fields, till the senate of Strasborough, overcome by the importunity of their divines, took them in, and relieved them, till they could be otherwise provided for (Scultet. Annal.). In the late wars of Germany people were found dead in the highways with grass in their mouths, perishing for want of better food.
And juniper roots for their meat] These, though they surpass all other in bitterness, were their ordinary food. Our forefathers, as they coloured their bodies with woad A blue dye-stuff prepared from the leaves of Isatis tinctoria powdered and fermented: now generally superseded by indigo, in the preparation of which it is still sometimes used. (and were, therefore, called Picts), this was their fine clothes; so their food was barks of trees, and roots, say our chroniclers. Is not the matter well amended with us? and should we not serve the Lord with joyfulness in the abundance of all things, Deuteronomy 28:47. Lavater thinks that these poor people for a living dug up juniper roots, and sold them to others for the use of making perfume.