watermelon

Today’s word, ‘ava•ti•chim’ is the plural of ‘ava•ti•ach,’ watermelon. Unlike melon, this word is biblical and has not changed to this very day:

“We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic”

The English word ‘melon’ is not the yellow melon that we know, but the common green-red watermelon.

The watermelon (called botanically Citrullus lanatus) is actually a vegetable and not a fruit. Because of its high water content, in the biblical verse above, it emphasizes the complaints of the Israelites in the desert and metaphorically polarizes the watermelon that they had in Egypt in abundance with the horrid dryness of the Sinai desert. This polarity is evident in the next verse:

“But now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes”