STRAW (מַתְבֵּן, H5495, תֶּ֫בֶן, H9320). Teben is mentioned fifteen times, but only once (Isa 25:10) is ‘mathbēn’ used. This word should have been tr. “vegetable waste.”

There would be more barley straw available in Pal. than wheat straw, for barley was used for feeding horses, donkeys and cattle, and most of the poor people ate barley bread.

There was also undoubtedly spelt straw available. It is uncertain, however, whether the straw mentioned in Exodus 5:7-18 was, in fact, barley or spelt straw, or whether it was merely the stalks of wild grasses, because the children of Israel were forced to gather what they needed for brick making.

Was hay the straw and provender which was given in Genesis 24:32? The reference to the lion eating “straw” in Isaiah 11:7 prob. refers to hay also.