Whence-a-Word?: “A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey”

A land that flows with milk and honey is one that provides an abundance of nourishment and rich food. Although a similar formulation appears in an ancient Ugaritic text about the Canaanite god Baal (“The heavens rain fat; the wadis flow with honey”), the phrase entered common usage through the Hebrew Bible. There, it almost always applies to the Promised Land, a new homeland that Yahweh pledged to give his people suffering under Egyptian bondage. In that usage, the phrase refers specifically to Canaan and concerns uncultivated grazing land, where milk is acquired from goats, and honey comes from either […]