| Word | American Tract Society - Definition |
| SOP | Joh 13:26, a small portion of bread, dipped in sauce, wine, or some other liquid at table, Ru 2:14. Modern table utensils were unknown or little used by the ancients. The food was conveyed to the mouth of the thumb and fingers, and a choice morsel was often thus bestowed on a favored guest. Similar customs still prevail in Palestine. Jowett says, "There are set on the table in the evening two or three messes of stewed meat, vegetables, and sour milk. To me the privilege of a knife, spoon, and plate was granted; but the rest helped themselves immediately from the dish, in which five Arab fingers might be seen at once. Their bread, which is extremely thin, tearing and folding up like a sheet of paper, is used for rolling together a large mouthful, or sopping up the fluid and vegetables. When the master of the house found in the dish any dainty morsel, he took it out with his fingers, and put it to my mouth." |