Dainties; Dainty (Meats)

dan'-tis (maT`ammoth, "things full of taste," man`ammim, ma`adhan; liparos, "fat," "shining"): Jacob is represented as predicting of Asher, "He shall yield royal dainties" (Ge 49:20; compare parallel clause, "His bread shall be fat," and De 33:24, "Let him dip his foot in oil"). David, praying to be delivered from the ways of "men that work inquiry," cries, "Let me not eat of their dainties" (Ps 141:4). The man who sitteth "to eat with a ruler" (Pr 23:1-3) is counseled, "If thou be a man given to appetite, be not desirous of his dainties; seeing they are deceitful food" (compare John's words in the woes upon Babylon (Re 18:14), "All things that were dainties and sumptuous are perished from thee," and Homer's Iliad (Pope). xviii.456). "Dainties," then, are luxuries, costly, delicate and rare. This idea is common to all the words thus rendered; naturally associated with kings' tables, and with the lives of those who are lovers of pleasure and luxury. By their associations and their softening effects they are to be abstained from or indulged in moderately as "deceitful food" by those who would live the simple and righteous life which wisdom sanctions. They are also "offered not from genuine hospitality, but with some by-ends." He should also shun the dainties of the niggard (Pr 23:6), who counts the cost (Pr 23:7 the Revised Version, margin) of every morsel that his guest eats.

See DELICATE; FOOD, etc.

George B. Eager