The first Time I remember wheat was when I was about 5 years old. We lived on a ranch in central California. One side was planted to wheat and the other was rolling hills of grass where the cattle ranged. My dad took me out into the wheat fields. we plucked several heads of ripened wheat; rolled them in our hands; blew away the chaff until we just had wheat kernels and finally chewed the remaining kernels. We chewed and chewed until finally we just had gum. What a surprise!
Later in college, I did basically the same thing in foods class, finding out that the final chewy substance was the protein that gives the elasticity to the bread as it bakes, gluten.
In western China, as we wandered the streets in early morning, we found venders grinding this green stuff. We bought some and took it to English classes to find out what it was and how they used it...it was immature wheat, used for breakfast cereal. In this same area, the staple food was not rice, but noodles of all kinds using this wheat as its base.
I have , over the years used the Psalm 1 lesson of grains and chaff for an illustration chewing wheat to get gum. Even now with my grand children. Life goes on....
Now I walk each day by growing wheat, planted to stop soil erosion. I have seen the plants grow and mature this summer. i am reminded that there were many lessons over the years from this grain -a staple food, harvest, lessons in life.
wheat and other grains are mentioned in the Bible many times.
-Provision of food for the people
-offerings at the temple
- comparison of people worthless and useful, the chaff and the grain..
God uses simple things to teach us life lessons.....they may seem unimportant at the time, but He provides life to his Word, meaning to life...
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Wheat
one of the earliest cultivated grains. It bore the Hebrew name _hittah_, and was extensively cultivated in Palestine. There are various species of wheat. That which Pharaoh saw in his dream was the Triticum compositum, which bears several ears upon one stalk (Gen. 41:5). The "fat of the kidneys of wheat" (Deut. 32:14), and the "finest of the wheat" (Ps. 81:16; 147:14), denote the best of the kind. It was exported from Palestine in great quantities (1 Kings 5:11; Ezek. 27:17; Acts 12:20).
Parched grains of wheat were used for food in Palestine (Ruth 2:14; 1 Sam. 17:17; 2 Sam. 17:28). The disciples, under the sanction of the Mosaic law (Deut. 23:25), plucked ears of corn, and rubbing them in their hands, ate the grain unroasted (Matt. 12:1; Mark 2:23; Luke 6:1). Before any of the wheat-harvest, however, could be eaten, the first-fruits had to be presented before the Lord (Lev. 23:14). Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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