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Eating.


Besides the common use of this word, it is employed symbolically for to 'consume, destroy:' they "eat up my people as they eat bread." Ps. 14: 4; cf. Prov. 30: 14; Habakkuk 3: 14; 2 Tim. 2: 17. Also for receiving, digesting, and delighting in God's words: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts." Jer. 15: 16. To eat together of the same bread or food is a token of friendship. Joshua 9: 14; Ps. 41: 9; Cant. 5: 1; John 13: 18; and such an expression of intimacy is forbidden towards those walking disorderly. 1 Cor. 5: 11. It is used to express the satisfaction of doing the work that is before the soul: the Lord said, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." John 4: 32. Also to express appropriation to the eater of the death of Christ: "except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." John 6: 53. (In John 6: 51, 53 there is eating for reception, φγω; and in John 6: 54, 56, 57, eating as a present thing for the maintenance of life, τργω.) In the Lord's Supper the Christian eats that which is a symbol of the body of Christ, Matt. 26: 26, and in eating he has communion with Christ's death. 1 Cor. 10: 16.