This small annual, Nigella sativa, grows wild in Mediterranean countries. It is cultivated for its seed in Egypt and Syria and used as a condiment. The name in some commentaries is "black cummin." Easton's Bible Dictionary says that sometimes the word fitches is incorrectly used for spelt or rye in other portions of Scripture.
Here in Isaiah 28 the Lord gives instructions on planting and threshing. The seeds of fennel cannot be harvested with common threshing tools because they are so small. A smaller instrument is to be used.
The plant grows two-three feet high. The flower is a lovely cerulean blue. Inside the flower are five green curled pistils and multiple stamens that are black on the ends. The leaves are clear green and feather-like (Walker).
Husks open to reveal cells filled with the seeds. They may be used in bread or to top certain cakes. The taste is quite hot. Sometimes it is mixed with pepper.
Isaiah 28:23-27
23: Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
24: Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?
25: When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and rie in their place?
26: For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.
27: For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
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