SEORAH (ini/V, said to be derived from hair ;' A. V. barlg) derives its name in liel;rew, according to lexicographers, from its long awns, or beards, as they are alko called, somewhat resembling hair. This grain is mentioned in Scrip ture as cultivated and used in Egypt (Exod. ix. 31), and in Palestine (Lev. xxvii. ; Deut. viii. 8 ; Chron. to ; Ruth ii. 17; 2 Sam. adv. 3o ; Is. xxviii. 25 ; Jer. xli. 8 ; Joel i. r). Barley was given to cattle, especially horses (r Kings iv. 28), and was indeed the only com grain given to them, as oats and rye were unknown to the Hebrews, and are not now grown in Palestine, although Volney affirms 117) that small quantities are raised in some parts of Syria as food for horses. Hence barley is mentioned in the Mishnah (Pesach. fol. 3) as the food of horses and asses. This is still the chief use of barley in Western -A.sia. Bread made of barley was, how- ! ever, used by the poorer classes Uudg. vii. 13 ; Kiags iv. 42 ; John 9, z3 - comp. Ezek. iv. 9). In Palestine barley was for the most part SONVI1 at the time of the autumnal rains--October, Novem ber (Lightfoot, Bor. Hebr. ad Matt. xii z), and again in ea.rly spring, or rather as soon as the depth of winter had passed (Mish. Berachoth, p. IS). This later sowing has not hitherto been much nodced by writers on this part of Biblical illustra tion, but is confirmed by various travellers who observed the solving of barley at this time of the year. Russell say-s that it continues to be sown until the end of February (Nat. Hist. Aleppo, L 74 ; see his meaning evolved in the Pictorial Pales tine, Phys. Hist. p. 214 ; comp. p. 229). The barley of the first crop was ready by the time of the Passover, in the month Abib, 'Alarch-April (Ruth i. 22 ; 2 Sam. 9; jUdith Viii. 2) • , and if not ripe at the expiration of a (Hebrew) rear from the last celebration, the year was intercalited (Lightfoot, ut supra) to preserve that connection between the feast and the barley-harvest which the law required (Exod. xxiii. 15, z6; Dent xvi. 16).
Accordingly, travellers concur in showing that the barley-harvest in Palestine is in March and April —advancing into May in the northern and moun tainous parts of the land ; but April is the month in which the barley-harvest is chiefly gathered in, although it begins earlier in some parts and later in others (Pict. Palestine, pp. 214, 229, 239). At Jerusalem Niebuhr found barley ripe at the end of March, when the later (autumnal) crop had only been lately sown (Beschreib. von Arabien, p. 160).
The passage in Is. xxxii. zo has been supposed oy many to refer to rice, as a mode of culture by submersion of the land after sowing, similar to that of rice, is indicated. The celebrated passage, Cast thy bread upon the waters,' etc. (Eccles. xi_ 1), has been by some supposed to refer also to such a mode of culture. But it is precarious to build so important a conclusion, as that rice had been so early introduced into the Levant, upon such slight indications ; and it now appears that barley is in some parts subjected to the same submersion after sowing as rice, as was particularly noticed by Major Skinner (i. 320) in the vicinity of Damascus. In Exod. ix. 31 we are told that the plague of hail, some time before the Passover, destroyed the barley, which was then in the g-,reen ear ; but not the wheat or the rye, which were only in the blade. This is minutely corroborated by the fact that the barley- sown after the inundation is reaped, some after ninety days, some in the fourth month (Wil kinson's Thebes, p. 395), and that it there ripens a month earlier than the wheat (Sonnini, p. 395).