And Jesse took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them by David his son unto Saul.
Jesse took an ass ... and sent them ... unto Saul - as a token of homage and respect. "An ass laden with." These two last words are supplemented by our translators. [The Hebrew text is chªmowr (H2543) lechem (H3899), an ass of bread; which the Septuagint renders it as: gomom artoon, a homer of loaves.] Reland ('Disser. de inscrip. Nummor. Samar.') adduces a great number of quotations from Greek writers, showing that the ancients used a bottle with two long handles, which, from their resemblance to donkeys' ears, were called onoi, asses; and the Greek poet Sosibus says of one of his heroes, 'He ate three times in the space of a single day three great donkeys of bread' [artoon treis onous]; which Casaubon understood to signify the lading of three donkeys; whereas the true meaning is, the contents of three vases or jars called donkeys (see the note at 1 Samuel 25:18: cf. Exodus 8:14; Judges 15:16, where the word is "heaps upon heaps" - literally, asses upon asses; i:e., it signifies, not an animal, but a measure, or amount of anything). According to this import of the expression, the clause will stand thus: Jesse took a heap or pile of loaves.
And a bottle of wine х no'd (H4997), a skin (cf. Joshua 9:4; Joshua 9:13; also Judges 4:19).] The word is applied to a substance soft, moist, or moistened into pliancy. They were rendered fit for preserving wine or other liquids by being suspended in the smoke (Ps. 9:83).