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" (Genesis 49:20; compare parallel clause, "His bread shall be fat," and Deuteronomy 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" (Psalms 141:4). The man who sitteth "to eat with a ruler" (Proverbs 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 (Revelation 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 (Proverbs 23:6), who counts the cost (Proverbs 23:7 the Revised Version, margin) of every morsel that his guest eats.

See DELICATE; DELICATELY ; FOOD , etc.

George B. Eager

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

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