They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 4. Grass. “There (in Crete, where no noxious animal, no serpent lives) the herb alimos, being chewed, expels hunger for the day;” admorsa diurnam famem prohibet. Solin. 17.—The Hebrew malliuch, is rendered halima, by the Septuagint ( Bible.) and Bochart would translate, “who gather the halima from the bush.” Calmet.—Prot. “who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.” Bible.—Yet all agree that the latter is not proper for food. Calmet.—Rethamim may ( Bible.) designate any “shrubs or wild herbs,” as the Septuagint and Symmachus have explained it. Calmet.—Perhaps the very poor people might use the juniper or broom roots for food, ( Menochius.) or to burn in order to prepare their victuals. Bible.—The Arabs and Spaniards still use the word retama for “the birch-tree.” Parkhurst.