And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled. The flax and the barley was smitten - The word פשתה pishtah, flax, Mr. Parkhurst thinks, is derived from the root פשט pashat, to strip, because the substance which we term flax is properly the bark or rind of the vegetable, pilled or stripped off the stalks. From time immemorial Egypt was celebrated for the production and manufacture of flax: hence the linen and fine linen of Egypt, so often spoken of in ancient authors.
Barley - שערה seorah, from שער saar, to stand on end, to be rough, bristly, etc.; hence שער sear, the hair of the head, and שעיר sair, a he-goat, because of its shaggy hair; and hence also barley, because of the rough and prickly beard with which the ears are covered and defended.
Dr. Pocock has observed that there is a double seed-time and harvest in Egypt: Rice, India wheat, and a grain called the corn of Damascus, and in Italian surgo rosso, are sown and reaped at a very different time from wheat, barley and flax. The first are sown in March, before the overflowing of the Nile, and reaped about October; whereas the wheat and barley are sown in November and December, as soon as the Nile is gone off, and are reaped before May.
Pliny observes, Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., cap. 10, that in Egypt the barley is ready for reaping in six months after it is sown, and wheat in seven. In Aegypto Hordeum sexto a satu mense, Feumenta septimo metuntur.
The flax was boiled - Meaning, I suppose, was grown up into a stalk: the original is גבעל gibol, podded or was in the pod.
The word well expresses that globous pod on the top of the stalk of flax which succeeds the flower and contains the seed, very properly expressed by the Septuagint, το δε λινον σπερματιζον, but the flax was in seed or was seeding.