Bible Dictionaries
Millet

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

דחן , Ezekiel 4:9 , a kind of plant so called from its thrusting forth such a quantity of grains. Thus in Latin it is called millium, as if one stalk bore a thousand seeds. It has been supposed that the dochan means what is now called in the east durra; which, according to Niebuhr, is a sort of millet, and when made into bad bread with camel's milk, oil, butter, or grease, is almost the only food which is eaten by the common people in Arabia Felix. "I found it so disagreeable," says he, "that I should willingly have preferred plain barley bread to it." This illustrates the appointment of it to the Prophet Ezekiel as a part of his hard fare. Durra is also used in Palestine and Syria, and it is generally agreed that it yields much more than any other kind of grain. Hiller and Celsius insist that the dochan is the panic; but Forskal has expressly mentioned the dokn, holcus dochna, as a kind of maize, of considerable use in food; and Brown, in his Travels, describes the mode of cultivating it.

Bibliography Information
Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Millet'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/​dictionaries/​eng/​wtd/​m/millet.html. 1831-2.