Here, then, we have three passages, in each of which a different word is mentioned, and yet these words have been translated in a precisely similar manner, both in our own version and in the Jewish Bible. The subject is so well summed up by the Rev. W. L. Bevan, in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," that we may insert here the passage:-- "It is difficult to decide how far these terms correspond with our notion of _cheese_, for they simply imply various degrees of coagulation. It may be observed that cheese is not at the present day common among the Bedouin Arabs, butter being decidedly preferred. But there is a substance closely corresponding to those mentioned in 1 Sam. xvii., 2 Sam. xvii., consisting of coagulated buttermilk, which is dried until it becomes quite hard, and is then ground. The Arabs eat it with butter. (Burckhardt, 'Notes on the Bedouins,' i. 60.) "In reference to this subject, it is noticeable that the ancients seem generally to have used either butter or cheese, but not both. Thus the Greeks had in reality but one expression for the two; for [Greek: boúteron] = [Greek: boûs-turós] ('cheese of kine'). The Romans used cheese extensively, while all nomad tribes preferred butter. The distinction between cheese proper and coagulated milk seems to be referred to in Pliny xi. 96." The reader will observe that this opinion exactly coincides with that which was expressed a few lines above, namely, that the Hebrews used one word to express both butter and cheese. The coagulated and dried buttermilk--_i.e._ the "leben" of the Bedouins, and the "amasi" of the Kaffir tribe--may well be the "shaphôth bâkâr," or "scrapings of the kine," as being necessarily scraped off the stone or metal plate on which it was dried. We now come to a portion of the Sheep scarcely less important than the flesh and the milk, _i.e._ the fleece, or wool. In the ancient times nearly the whole of the clothing was made of wool, especially the most valuable part of it, namely the large mantle, or "haick," in which the whole person could be folded, and which was the usual covering during sleep. The wool, therefore, would be an article of great national value; and so we find that when the king of Moab paid his tribute in kind to the king of Israel, it was carefully specified that the Sheep should not be shorn. "And Mesha king of Moab was a sheep-master, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool." The wool of the Sheep of Palestine differed extremely in value; some kinds being course and rough, while others were long, fine, and soft.