SALT-WORT

solt'-wurt (malluach, a word connected with melach, "salt," translated halimos; the King James Version, mallows): The halimos of the Greeks is the sea orache, Atriplex halimus, a silvery whitish shrub which flourishes upon the shores of the Dead Sea alongside the rutm (see JUNIPER ). Its leaves are oval and somewhat like those of an olive. They have a sour flavor and would never be eaten when better food was obtainable (Job 30:4). The translation "mallows" is due to the apparent similarity of the Hebrew malluach to the Greek malache, which is the Latin malva and English "mallow." Certain species of malva known in Arabic, as khubbazeh, are very commonly eaten by the poor of Palestine.

E. W. G. Masterman

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.