Israelites commonly used a cubit of about 17.5 inches (c. 44.5 centimeters), and calculations in this publication are figured accordingly. The Siloam Inscription, for instance, gives 1,200 cubits as the length of the water tunnel built by King Hezekiah. According to the most accurate modern measurement, this tunnel is 1,749 feet (533.1 meters) long. Thus, when taken at face value, these figures yield a cubit of 17.49 inches (44.4 centimeters). Also, numerous buildings and enclosures excavated in Palestine can be measured in whole numbers of this unit, giving further basis for reckoning the cubit at 17.5 inches.

Evidently the Israelites also used a larger cubit that was one handbreadth (c. 2.9 inches, 7.4 centimeters) longer than the “common” cubit. This larger cubit of about 20.4 inches (51.8 centimeters) figured in the measurements of Ezekiel’s visionary temple.—Ezek. 40:5.

Cubit measuring sticks found in Egypt show a cubit of 17.7 inches (45 centimeters) and one of 20.67 inches (52.5 centimeters).

CUCKOO

[Heb., bar·bu·rimʹ (plural)].

This name occurs only once in the Bible, at 1 Kings 4:23 where the list of daily provisions of food for Solomon’s court includes “fattened cuckoos [bar·bu·rimʹ].” (JB; NW) While AV, RS and other versions here read “fatted fowl,” bar·bu·rimʹ seems to refer to a specific kind of bird rather than being simply a general term. Though some have identified it with the capon, the guinea hen, or the goose, lexicographers Koehler and Baumgartner (Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, p. 147) suggest the “cuckoo,” and this seems to be indicated by the Arabic name for that bird, namely ʼabu burbur. The Hebrew name, like the English name, is evidently in imitation of the bird’s call, since that of the female cuckoo is said to be a chuckling sound like that of “bubbling water with guttural intonation.”

The common cuckoo and the great spotted cuckoo both pass through Palestine on their northern migration, arriving in early March. The cuckoo is a moderate-sized bird, resembling a small hawk, with a slightly curved, sharp-pointed beak. The head is usually gray, the long, pointed wings are brown, the long tail is rounded, and the underbelly and thighs are gray or brown and spotted or barred.

While some consider the cuckoo to be a rather small bird to be used on Solomon’s menu, it may be noted that even plucked sparrows were anciently sold in Eastern markets. (Matt. 10:29) Additionally, these cuckoos were “fattened” ones, and concerning such The American Cyclopoedia (1883, Vol. V, p. 557) says: “In autumn they are fat and esteemed as food; the ancients were very partial to them, and their flesh was supposed to have valuable medicinal properties.” The Romans are known to have eaten stuffed cuckoos, and cuckoos are said to be considered a delicacy even till this day in Italy and Greece.

While the “cuckow” is included in the King James Version as among the unclean birds, at Leviticus 11:16 and Deuteronomy 14:15, this translation (of the Hebrew shaʹhhaph) is no longer considered acceptable. (See GULL.) The cuckoo is neither a carrion eater nor a bird of prey, but a valuable consumer of insects. It was legally “clean” and fit for use on the royal table.

Some, but not all, types of cuckoo have parasitical habits in their egg-laying, making use of the nests of other birds and leaving one egg in each of several nests for the foster-parent birds to hatch and care for. Quite amazing is the fact that, even though the parent birds have already migrated to northern lands, and even though hatched by non-migrating birds, the orphaned young cuckoos, on reaching the point of flying, will unhesitatingly take off on migration, in some cases unerringly traveling up to 2,150 miles (3,459 kilometers), to join the parent birds that have preceded them.

CUCUMBER

[Heb., plural, quish·shu·ʼimʹ; miq·shahʹ, cucumber field].

Among the foods of Egypt for which the complaining Israelites and mixed crowd, now tired of the daily diet of manna, expressed great longing were the cucumbers, along with watermelons, leeks, onions and garlic. (Num. 11:5) Some scholars, viewing the cucumber as too ordinary a food to provoke such longing, prefer to render the Hebrew term as “melon” (JB), suggesting the muskmelon (Cucumis melo) as a likely identification. However, the evidence from languages that are cognate with Hebrew, as well as that from early translations, points to the cucumber, and its popularity to the present time among people of the Near East would likewise seem to substantiate such identification.

The cucumber grows as a long trailing vine bearing yellow or whitish flowers. The fruit of the common cucumber (Cucumis sativus) has a smooth, green to blue-green rind, and greenish-white seedy pulp inside. Another variety, Cucumis chate, is particularly associated with Egypt and produces a fruit that is much longer and more slender than the common cucumber but often less juicy; the rind is hairy and of a mottled or striped green color. While the latter type of cucumber is more hardy, both kinds flourish best in warm climate and with ample moisture. The well-watered banks of the Nile and the dew-moistened land of Palestine, combined with the heat of the sun, provide ideal growing conditions for the plant, and both varieties mentioned are extensively cultivated in these countries.

It was customary to erect a booth or hut in vegetable gardens or in vineyards as a shelter for the watchman who guarded the products of the fields against thieves and marauding animals. If like those used in recent times, the hut was a rather frail structure formed of four upright poles driven into the earth, with crosspieces to connect them. Branches were used to form the roof and sides, these sometimes being wattled (that is, the twigs and slender branches were interwoven), while the main joints of the structure were tied together with withes (flexible twigs used as rope). Once the growing season ends, these huts are deserted and, as the autumn winds and rain begin, they may sag or even collapse. Thus, in describing the desolation due to come upon the apostate people of Judah, Isaiah graphically depicted them as “left remaining like a booth in a vineyard, like a lookout hut in a field of cucumbers.”—Isa. 1:8.

Pillars of stones, or poles, or other devices were also placed in the cultivated fields to scare off the animals, and to such a mute inanimate “scarecrow of a cucumber field” the prophet Jeremiah likened the images made by the idolatrous nations.—Jer. 10:5.

CUD

The food brought up from the digestive system of an animal to be chewed again. Chewing the cud, along with split and cleft hoofs, were requirements of the Mosaic law for animals to be considered clean for eating. “Clean” cud-chewing animals included the stag, gazelle, roebuck, antelope, chamois, domestic and wild cattle, sheep and goats. This classification excluded the camel, rock badger and hare or rabbit, for though they chewed the cud, their hoofs were not split. (Lev. 11:1-8, 26; Deut. 14:4-8) Some commentators claim that clawless cud-chewing animals are usually cleaner in their eating habits, and their twice-chewed food is digested more thoroughly, so that if poisonous plants are eaten, much of the poison is neutralized or removed by the complex chemistry involved in the longer digestive process.

The process of cud chewing is one of the interesting marvels of creation, The majority of cud-chewing animals have three or four compartments in their stomach and generally cycle their food in a similar pattern. Most of the food they eat passes only partially chewed into the first cavity, and from there into the second, where it is softened and shaped into round cuds. When the animal has stopped