Biblical Bestiary: Bee

In the Bible, bees are portrayed as irritable and a symbol of pursuit—including of God’s people by God (Isaiah 7:18). Leviticus 11 considers the bee (deborah, in Hebrew) unclean, while honey (debash) is permitted—probably because biblical references to honey mostly concern a sweet syrup extracted from dates. The only explicit mention of bees’ honey in the Hebrew Bible is in Judges 14:8, where it refers to wild bees or a swarm. Accordingly, apiculture (or beekeeping) is not attested in the Bible (unlike foraging from wild bees), and the promises of “the land flowing with milk and honey” concern uncultivated […]