Butter

Butter in Scripture translates the Hebrew chemah, which more precisely designates curdled milk, leben (a yogurt-like fermented dairy product), or clarified butter—the product of churning milk in a skin bag, common across the ancient Near East. Abraham served his three divine visitors curd and milk along with a prepared calf (Gen. 18:8), and Jael gave Sisera curdled milk from a skin to drink (Judg. 5:25). Job 29:6 uses the image of his steps being “washed with butter” (clarified fat) as a figure for extraordinary prosperity and ease.

The land flowing with “milk and honey” reflects the same pastoral abundance that butter imagery evokes. Isaiah 7:15, 22 promises that in the time of the messianic child, curds and honey will be the available food in a land so depopulated by judgment that it reverts to pasture—an ambiguous image simultaneously of divine provision and agricultural devastation. Psalm 55:21 uses butter as a metaphor for smooth, deceptive speech: “His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart.” Proverbs 30:33 draws on the physical process of churning: “Churning milk produces curds, and twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife.”