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Staff of life
Definitions
- 1 Bread or some other staple foodstuff. idiomatic, literary, often, poetic
"It was reserved for Christians to torture bread, the staff of life, bread for which children in whole districts wail, bread, the gift of pasture to the poor, bread, for want of which thousands of our fellow beings annually perish by famine; it was reserved for Christians to torture the material of bread by fire, to create a chemical and maddening poison, burning up the brain and brutalizing the soul, and producing evils to humanity, in comparison of which, war, pestilence, and famine, cease to be evils."
- 2 food made from dough of flour or meal and usually raised with yeast or baking powder and then baked wordnet
Etymology
By extension from the Biblical phrase “break the staff of bread” (Hebrew מַטֶּה לֶחֶם (maté lékhem)), staff (“long, straight rod”) in this context meaning something that acts as a support: see, for example, Leviticus 26:26 (King James Version; spelling modernized): “And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied”; and Ezekiel 4:16: “[…] Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care, and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment: […]”. Compare Egyptian ḫt n ꜥnḫ (“grain; food”, literally “stick or wood of life”).
See also for "staff of life"
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