juniper roots [for] their meat, or "bread" ; with the roots of which the poor were fed in time of want, as Schindler observes: that bread may be, and has been made out of roots, is certain, as with the West Indians, out of the roots of "ages" and "jucca" ; and in particular juniper roots in the northern countries have been used for bread ; and there were a people in Ethiopia above Egypt, who lived upon roots of reeds prepared, and were called "rhisophagi" , "root eaters": some render the words, "or juniper roots to heat", or "warm with" , as the word is used in Isa 47:14; and coals of juniper have in them a very great and vehement heat, see Ps 120:3; but if any part of the juniper tree was taken for this purpose, to warm with when cold, one should think the branches, or the body of the tree, should be cut down, rather than the roots dug up: another sense is given by some , that meat or bread is to be understood of the livelihood these persons got by digging up juniper roots, and selling them: there are others that think, that not the roots of juniper, but of "broom" , are meant, whose rape, or navew, or excrescence from the roots of it, seem to be more fit food.
All this agrees with the Troglodytes, whom Pliny represents as thieves and robbers, and, when pressed with famine, dig up herbs and roots: cutters of roots are reckoned among the worst of men by Manetho .
Diodorus Siculus, l. 3. p. 175. xyv yle "super virgulto", Montanus, Schultens; "super arbustum", Bochart. In symposio septem sap. "-----me pascunt olivae. Me cichorea levesque malvae". Carmin. l. 1. Ode.
31. & Epod. Ode. 2. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 760. lbid. vid. Reinesium de Lingua Punic. c. 9. S. 20, 21. T. Bab. Kiddushin, fol. 66. 1. David de Pomis Lexic. fol. 80. 3. Mmxl "panis eorum", Montanus, Michaelis, Schultens.
Lexic. col. 1775. Pet. Martyr. de Angleria, decad. 1. l. 1. Olaus Magnus, de Ritu Gent. Septent. l. 12. c. 4. Diod. Sic. l. 3. p. 159. "Ad calefaciendum se", Pagninus; so Kimchi, Sepher Shorash rad,Mmx.
Hillerus apud Schultens in loc. Mymtr vrv "radix genistarum", Michaelis, Schultens; so some in Mercerus, Drusius, & Gussetius, p. 839. Nat. Hist. l. 37. c. 8. Apotelesm. l. 5. v.