THREE KINDS OF FOOD
Because food is such a constant in our physical lives, we must work hard to avoid the default interpretation of thinking of Biblical references to food as physical food. The challenge is to interpret the symbolic meanings of natural foods as spiritual food that comes from the mouth of God or as food/meat/things with blood in it that is sacrificed to idols that comes from false prophets. This challenge is further complicated with the existence of soulish food that, seems like spiritual food to the undiscerning palate but is actually a deceptive imitation of the real thing.

The topic appears often in the Bible, especially in Old/First Covenant books where the Hebrew word “ma’akal” appears twenty-nine times and is most often translated into English as meat, food and fruit. A second Hebrew word “lechem” appears two hundred and ninety-seven times with the most common English translations being “bread, “food” and “meat.” In the New Testament, on the other hand, the Greek word “trophe” is the word translated in English as food and it appears only sixteen times as food, nourishment and meat. A second Greek word “Artos” is typically translated as “bread” but never as food or meat. These various translations only add to our confusion about the meaning of food.

If we who live in these modern times are confused about what God meant when he included these Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible, we should not be discouraged or embarrassed because the scholars who translated from the original Hebrew and Greek texts were also confused. Thus we find a wide variety of translations of the Hebrew and Greek words in different versions of the Bible. The Greek word “artos,” for example translated as “meat” in the King James Version and as “food” in the New International and Revised Standard versions. What that suggests is that agreeing on a strictly literal interpretation of words translated as food will be difficult and unnecessary.

We dare say “unnecessary” because literal interpretations of the Bible are not important — except that they lead us to listening to God’s voice which explains to us the true, symbolic meaning of a word. Therefore, the God’s spoken word is what we really want and need. Our challenge, then, is to discover (i.e. listen for) the spiritual meanings of the words that are translated as food, meat (e.g quail, animal sacrifices), milk, grain, seed, bread, grain offerings, meat offerings, fruit, honey, manna and wine. Each type of food has its own symbolism that must be understood. We will report our understanding of the spiritual intent of each type of food in some detail in the following pages. But first we must emphasize that God’s references to food are always spiritual — whether for good or evil. Here are summary statements that will be explained in later pages:

In addition to these distinctions, we must also recognize that natural food can become evil food when it is used for religious purposes in the following circumstances:

In these distinctions we see that good spiritual food can only come from God and that empty, evil, unclean, soulish food comes through false prophets who practice, promote and sell religion. These are important distinctions to keep in mind when reading the Bible.