MEALS

Meals
are at the present day "eaten from a round table little higher
than a stool, guests sitting cross-legged on mats or small
carpets in a circle, and dipping their fingers into one large
dish heaped with a mixture of boiled rice and other grain and
meat. But in the time of our Lord, and perhaps even from the
days of Amos (6:4, 7), the foreign custom had been largely
introduced of having broad couches, forming three sides of a
small square, the guests reclining at ease on their elbows
during meals, with their faces to the space within, up and down
which servants passed offering various dishes, or in the absence
of servants, helping themselves from dishes laid on a table set
between the couches." Geikie's Life of Christ. (Comp. Luke
7:36-50.) (See ABRAHAM'S {BOSOM}; {BANQUET}; {FEAST}.)