And he took butter,— חֶמְאָה, from the root חמא, to curdle or become thick, signifies curdled milk, not butter ( βούτυτρον, LXX.; butyrum, Vulgate), which was not used among Orientals except medicinally.
The word occurs seven times in Scripture with four letters (Deuteronomy 32:14; 5:25; 2 Samuel 17:29; Isaiah 7:15, Isaiah 7:22; Proverbs 30:33; Job 20:17), and once without א—and milk,— חָלָב, milk whilst still fresh, or containing its fatness, from a root signifying to be fat (cf.
Genesis 49:12; Proverbs 27:27)—and the calf which he—i.e. the young man—had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree,—a custom still observed among the Arabs, who honor their guests not by sitting to eat with, but by standing to wait upon, them—and they did eat.
Not seemed to eat (Josephus, Philo, Jonathan), nor simply ate after an allegorical fashion, as fire consumes the materials put into it, but did so in reality (Tertullian, Delitzsch, Keil, Kurtz, Lange).
Though the angel who appeared to Manoah ( 13:16) refused to partake of food, the risen Savior ate with his disciples (Luke 24:43). Physiologically inexplicable, this latter action on the part of Christ was not a mere φαινόμενον or simulation, but a veritable manducation of material food, to which Christ appealed in confirmation of the reality of his resurrection; and the acceptance of Abraham's hospitality on the part of Jehovah and his angels may in like manner have been designed to prove that their visit to his tent at Mamre was not a dream or a vision, but a genuine external manifestation.