or allegiance (2 Sam. 8:2, 6)’.25 An altogether different use is made of it in Numbers 5:15, where it is described as ‘a grain offering for jealousy’ and is part of the ritual for discerning whether a wife had been unfaithful to her husband. Can we be more specific? Can its nature be defined more precisely? One way in which the word minḥâ was used was in the context of a tribute paid by a subject people to their superior. It was sometimes an act of appeasement,