FRUITS (frutz), (Heb. ‘7,15eri, fruit), in general, vegetable or animal (Deut.vii:13, Ns; xxviii:51, bis).
It originated the English word 'fruit,' by the D being sounded as ph, and subsequently con verted into f. Under this head may perhaps be most appropriately noticed a classification of produce of great importance to a right under standing of the Bible, since the beauty and force of more than forty passages of the sacred record are impaired by inattention to it.
(1) Summer Fruits. The term kayits, 'sum mer-fruits,' appears to denote those less impor tant species of fruit which were adapted only to immcdiate consumption, or could not be easily or conveniently conserved for winter use (Jer. xl:to, 12). Kayits may have been included as a species under the head of orchard-fruit ; it would seem to indicate either the existence of some con trasted term, as 'winter-fruits, or to imply that the products of the class under which it ranked as a species were generally distinguished by their capability of being preserved throughout the year. It is conceived that the products denoted by the third of the generic terms now to be considered were chiefly characterized by their capacity of heing stored up and preserved. The three terms spoken of as being so frequently associated in the Scriptures, and expressive of a most comprehen sive triad of blessings, are Dagan, Tirosh, and Yitzhar.
(2) Fruit of the Field. Dagan, 'fruit of the field,' or agricultural produce. Under this term the Hebrews classed almost every object of field culture. (See AGRICULTURE.) Dr. Jahn says, 'the word is of general signification, and compre hends in itself different kinds of grain and pulse, such as wheat, millet, spelt, wall-barley, barley, beans, lentils, meadow-cummin, pepper-wort, flax, cotton, various species of the cucumber, and per haps rice' (Bib. Antiq., sec. 58). There is now no doubt among scholars that dagan comprehends the largest and most valuable species of vegetable produce ; and therefore it will be allowed that the rendering of the word in the common version by 'corn,' and sometimes by 'wheat,' instead of 'every species of corn' or field produce, tends to limit our conceptions of the divine bounty, as well as to impair the beauty of the passages where it occurs.
(3) Fruit of the Vine. Tirosh, 'the fruit of the vine,' in its natural or its solid state, compre hending grapes, moist or dried, and the fruit in general, whether in the early cluster or the mature and ripened condition (Is. lxv :8), which is rendered by 1367-por, grafie, in the Septuagint, rcfers to the young grape ; while (Judg. ix :13), where 'the vine said, Shall I leave my tirosh (fruit) which cheereth God and man ?' as evi dently refers to the ripened produce which was placed on the altar as a first-fruit offering in grateful acknowledgment of the divine good ness. 'Sometimcs,' says Dr. Jahn, 'the grapes were dried in the sun and preserved in masses, which were called gnenabhint, eshishah, tzimmoo kine (i Sam. xxv :t8 ; 2 Sam. xvi ; t Chron. xii : 4o; Hos. iii :1) ; (Bib. Antic'. sec. 69). Tirosh is derived from the verbal noun yarash, `to possess by inheritance' (whence Latin kart's, English heir), and was very naturally applied to designate the vintage-fruit, which, next to dagan, consti tuted one of the most valuable 'possessions' of the Jews.
It is also distinctly ireferred to as the yielder of wine, and therefore was not wine itself, but the raw material from which it was expressed or prepared. Dr. Conquest's amended translation of (Micah vi :15), is, 'Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap, thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil (shemen, not yitzhar); and the grape tirosh), but shalt not drink wine' (yayin). As the treading of the Olive is represented as yielding oi/, so is tirosh represented as that which, being trodden in the vat, should yield wine, which flowed out from an opening into the lacus or receptacle beneath. Archbishop Newcome, in his version of this text, has 'the grape of the choice wine ;' while Julius Bate, M. A., observes on this passage—'Hence it is plain that tirosh is what is pressed, the grapes.' Dr. Jahn's definition of tirosh as the juice which flows from the trodden grapes, is also negatived by the fact that another word exactly expressive of the same thing already exists, namely, ausis, from ausas, 'to tread down to gether.' Neither is it likely that it should be a generic name for wine, since such a term is found in 1", yayin.