.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Ever wonder how Joseph (viceroy to the King of Egypt in the Old Testament), succeeded in preserving huge amounts of grain for seven years without the benefit of chemical pest control and the inability to seal the warehouse as is possible today? Researchers from Bar-Ilan University have been exploring such questions for a long time and now believe they have found the answer in the remains of a burnt beetle found in a grain of wheat about 3,500 years old.  

They believe Joseph was aware of this [destructive beetles] and therefore, according to the Biblical description - he isolated the grain of each city in its own jurisdiction and prevented the transfer of batches of grain from one community to another. In their opinion, that is the meaning of the verse: 'and [he] laid up the food in the cities; the food of the field, which was round about every city.'

According to a report in Haaretz, Prof. Mordechai Kislev, Dr. Orit Simhoni and Dr. Yoel Melamed, from the laboratory for archaeological botany in the Life Sciences department of BIU, studied the beetle known as the Lesser Grain Borer, which was found in one grain of wheat among several tens of thousands that were discovered in a dig at Tel Beit She'an. That granary was dated to the Middle Bronze Age II B, about the time when Joseph was in Egypt. The report adds that the beetle, which originated in India and can cause catastrophic damage as it can finish off a granary in a very short time, was among the most ancient ever found in the Land of Israel. The lesser grain borers reportedly changed their taste to wheat and barley several thousand years ago when they began migrating westward during the time of Joseph.

Reporter Ran Shapira noted that the three researchers were familiar with granary pests from their previous study of grains found in Tel Hadar, on the shore of Lake Kinneret, north of Ein Gev, where they found a large number of such pests.

"When they examined the vestiges of the plants in the granary at Tel Beit She'an, the three researchers came to the conclusion that the wheat had been harvested in the Gilead region," said Shapira. "The conclusion reminded Prof. Kislev of the caravan of Ishmaelites that came from the Gilead region, whose members bought Joseph from his brothers and took him with them to Egypt (Genesis 36, 25-28). The lesser grain borer was just starting its career in Egypt when Joseph arrived there. Because of its phenomenal reproductive capacity, storing one batch of grain containing a small population of the grain borer was enough to bring about the destruction of the entire granary and to threaten an entire city with starvation."

The researchers believe Joseph was aware of this and therefore," adds Shapira, "according to the Biblical description—he isolated the grain of each city in its own jurisdiction and prevented the transfer of batches of grain from one community to another. In their opinion, that is the meaning of the verse: 'and [he] laid up the food in the cities; the food of the field, which was round about every city.'"

As to the type of pest control that was practiced during the time of Joseph, the researchers referred to a quote by the 11th century Hebrew Bible commentator Rashi, who wrote: "And people put amongst the grain some of the earth of the place, and this prevents it from decaying." They believe Rashi was "referring to a method by which fine sand is added to the grain. The grains of sand scratch the hard covering that surrounds the body of the beetle, and make it dry up and die. This method is still used today by various African tribes, and we can assume that it was sufficiently effective to exterminate a pest that had just arrived in the region, like the lesser grain borer."

Used by Permission of Breaking Christian News www.breakingchristiannews.com / Source: Ran Shapira – Haaretz

Comments (0)

Show/Hide comments

Name

Website

Title

Comment

Add Comment