Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?
Unsavoury - tasteless; insipid. Salt is a chief necessary of life to an Eastern, whose food is mostly vegetable.
The white - literally, spittle (1 Samuel 21:13), which the white of an egg resembles.
Egg, х chalaamuwt (H2495)]. Gesenius and Syriac version translate 'an insipid potherb:' a proverbial phrase with the Arabs. The Chaldaic version and Rabbins support the English version. The sense is, How can I possibly like that which is distasteful-namely, my misery?