TIMBER AND FOREST TREES AND SHRUBS.

The purpose of the present and succeeding chapters is to describe and illustrate the Botany of the Bible, not to enumerate the entire vegetable productions of Palestine and the neighbouring territories. The subject under consideration is thus limited to some six score species of plants, instead of several thousands. It has therefore been deemed expedient to consult the convenience of ordinary readers by adopting a scientific basis rather than a scientific arrangement, viewing each tree, or herb, or flower from a Biblical rather than a botanical standpoint, while endeavouring to keep constantly in mind the results of Oriental travel and scientific research.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that the identification of some few of the plants mentioned in Scripture remains, notwithstanding the labours of philologists and scientific travellers, a matter of uncertainty. No one can determine, for example, what precise production is meant by the 'Vine of Sodom,' or what the 'Almug trees' were which Solomon imported into Palestine. But, beyond such doubtful cases, it should be clearly understood at the outset that even when a tree, or shrub, or flower has been identified, it by no means follows that the Hebrew or Greek name is precisely equivalent to the botanical one. The area, so to speak, of the former may be greater or less than that of the latter; mostly greater, but occasionally less; — that is to say, the original Scripture term often includes several species now considered distinct, and even different genera. For example, the word translated 'fir' (and sometimes 'cypress 'and 'juniper') in our English version probably includes at least three species of the genus Pinus, now found in Palestine; viz. the stone pine (P. pined), the Aleppo pine (P. Halepensis), and the coast pine (P. maritima). On the other hand, four Hebrew words are used to denote the oaks of Palestine, of which there are some six or seven species, beside varieties; but the respective names cannot be allotted with greater precision than this.

The tendency of scientific classification being to mark distinctions, and denote them by new and appropriate terms, it necessarily happens that popular names of plants and animals are as a rule of much wider application than technical ones. It is so in our own language, where such terms as "rose,' 'lily,' 'apple,' &c, are applied to widely different kinds of plants. But it will sometimes happen, where a species is very common or very conspicuous, that the scientific name is represented by several popular ones. This is the case with a few of the animals of Palestine; the Hebrew having five names for the lion and four for the he-goat, whereas zoology has but one for each.

It is natural to conclude that the Israelites after taking possession of the conquered territory would attach definite names to such members of its fauna and flora as were new to them; and in that unscientific, or rather pre-scientific, age would be governed by the outward characteristics of each animal or plant. Thus the popular names of organized beings are commonly descriptive, and usually faithful to their external characteristics. It is also observable that the comparative frequency of Biblical allusions to this or that member of the vegetable or animal kingdom affords a rough but by no means untrustworthy measure of its relative numbers or importance. The careful student of Scripture would need no actual survey or authoritative statement to convince him that the olive, the fig, the vine, and the pomegranate were the most common fruit-trees of Palestine in ancient days.

Before attempting to specify the particular trees and shrubs alluded to by the sacred writers, it may be well to notice some few general terms employed by them to denote aggregations of vegetable growth as an element in Eastern scenery. Here, as in so many individual cases, the finer shades of meaning as well as the picturesqueness of description observable in the Hebrew names are too often lost or obscured in our Authorized Version by a want of uniformity in the renderings. The late Dean Stanley sought to remedy this defect in the valuable and now well-known Appendix of Natural Terms, subjoined to his Sinai and Palestine; and the Company of Revisers have since successfully endeavoured to introduce into the English translation a more uniform correspondence with the original text.

In the Authorized Version four principal terms are employed to denote collective vegetation, as follows: —

1. Forest (Heb. יַעַר yaar).

2. Wood (Heb. יַעַר yaar, חׂרֶשׁ choresh).

3. Grove (Heb. אֲשׁרָה asherah, אֵשֶׁל eshel).

4. Thicket (Heb. סְבָךְ sebak, סׂבֶךְ sobek).

1. The first, יַעַר (yaar), is applied to any considerable assemblage of trees, whether timber or fruit-bearing, and irrespective of dimensions. Thus it is used to denote the cedars of Lebanon (1 Kings vii. 2, &c), the oaks of Carmel (Isaiah xxxvii. 24), and the fruit-trees of an orchard (Eccles. ii. 6; Song of Solomon ii. 3). All the great forests of ancient Palestine were so entitled, and the Revisers have preserved uniformity in the corresponding English word, whereas the Authorized Version renders it indifferently 'wood' and 'forest.' It appears in the proper name Kirjath-jearim (city of forests).

2. The second term, חׂרֶשׁ (choresh), includes not only what we understand by a 'wood,' as inferior in extent and importance to a 'forest,' but also what in other countries than Palestine would be called 'underwood,' 'scrub' or 'jungle,' and of which the present condition of the once-favoured land affords abundant examples, especially on the Carmel range, and on the western slopes of the central highlands. Doubtless what is now choresh was represented in the palmy days of Canaanite and Hebrew history by vineyards and olive-groves, which will account for the infrequent occurrence of the word in the Old Testament. In Isaiah xvii. 9 it is incorrectly translated 'bough 'in the Authorized Version, and in Ezek. xxxi. 3 (poetically) 'shroud,' i.e. of foliage.

3. The English word 'grove,' so frequent in the Authorized Version as applied to idolatrous rites, has almost disappeared from the revised text. This is due to the fact that, in almost every instance, the original term is אֲשׁרָה (asherah, plural asherint or askeroth), upon the precise signification of which much learning and ingenuity have been expended; but which is now generally understood to denote the symbolic 'pillars,' 'obelisks,' 'poles,' or 'masts' (as they have been variously termed) erected in places set apart for the worship of the Phoenician goddess Ashtoreth. Such rites were no doubt frequently marked by groups of trees; but 'groves 'in the ordinary sense the asherim certainly were not. In the Revised Version the word is wisely left untranslated.

We read in Genesis xxi. 33 that 'Abraham planted a "grove" in Beersheba;' but the original word is here אֵשֶׁל (eshel), not אֲשׁרָה (asherah). Modern interpreters translate eshel by 'a tamarisk,' which in itself is probable enough, as five species of this graceful tree are found in and around Palestine; and it is one of the few kinds native to the southern desert. But in 1 Sam. xxii. 6 and xxxi. 13 the same word is rendered £a tree,' while in the parallel passage to the latter reference — 1 Chron. x. 12 — this same tree is called in the Authorized Version 'the oak,' and in the margin of the Revised Version, more precisely, 'the terebinth' אֵלָה elah). From a comparison of these passages it would seem safe to translate eshel simply 'a tree,' which in Abraham's case was probably a tamarisk, but in that of Saul a tree of more conspicuous growth and more spreading foliage. Under an oak or a terebinth he may have encamped, and under a similarly well-known landmark the bones of the ill-fated king and his sons may have found a final resting-place.

4. The rendering of the Hebrew words סְבָךְ (sebak) and סׂבֶךְ (sobek) by the familiar term 'thicket 'is sufficiently accurate and expressive, denoting as they do the 'thicker 'portions of vegetation, whether of trees or bushes. Examples, Gen. xxii. 13; Isaiah ix. 18; Jer. iv. 7.

In numerous passages of the Old and New Testaments mention is made collectively of 'thorns 'and 'briers,' often in connexion with 'thistles 'or 'nettles.' The vast abundance of shrubs and low plants of a spinous growth in modern Palestine is attested by every traveller, and is especially noticeable in the drier parts of that country. Abandoned, as so much of the territory of Israel has been for ages, to the unchecked operation of natural agencies, the prevalence of plants useless or noxious to man need excite no surprise, while it is in strict accordance with ancient predictions. But the prevalence of spinous plants was not confined to modern times, as may be proved by a reference to a Hebrew concordance, from which we learn that these troublesome forms of vegetation are denoted by more than a dozen different words. Rabbinical writers make the number twenty-two; but the lower estimate amply proves the variety and abundance of the things so signified. 'The land shall become briers and thorns 'is a threat repeatedly uttered by Old Testament prophets, as a penalty for disobedience; and that which has now become so general in Palestine was doubtless fulfilled temporarily and on a more limited scale long before the downfall of the Hebrew commonwealth.

The fact furnishes only another illustration of the point already insisted on, that the Land of Promise was one whose excellences peculiarly needed the co-operation of human industry to render them blessings. In the absence of the ploughman and the sower, the very fertility of the soil, uniting with the dryness of the atmosphere and the often e-xtreme heat of the sun, produced a condition highly favourable to the multiplication of spinous growths. Every student of botany knows that a thorn is an undeveloped branch, which under cultivation may be made to put forth leaves and bear blossoms and fruit. Unfavourable conditions arrest growth, and what would have been a verdant bough becomes simply a mischievous thorn. And in Palestine a number of plant-genera are represented whose habit is thorny in a remarkable degree. The Jewish husbandman was therefore surrounded by ambushed foes, numerous and formidable as Midianite or Philistine, and as ready to take possession of his fields and orchards, if the watchful eye and ready hand were wanting¹. The garden of the slothful man described in the Proverbs (xxiv. 31) was but the same phenomenon in miniature as that produced from time to time by desolating wars and diminished population, when not only 'the beasts of the field 5 (Exod. xxiii. 29) but even the weeds found opportunities to 'multiply against' the inhabitants. When peace and prosperity restored the balance of power to man, the thorny undergrowth around his settlements furnished a useful fuel for the preparation of his food (Psalm lviii. 9; Eccles. vii. 6).

It is perhaps scarcely needful to add that, in the multitude of possible meanings, the original words cannot generally be affixed with certainty to any particular species, or even to any genus, of spinous plant; indeed, it is not probable that, in the majority of cases, any specific reference was implied in the Hebrew or Greek nouns used by the sacred writers, any more than by our corresponding English ones. Even the word used in the Gospels to denote the material of which the thorny crown of the Saviour was composed is of general significance, and has left room for innumerable conjectures. The Zizyphus spina Christi, notwithstanding its botanical name, has no claim to be considered as other than a plant of the desert and valleys. The 'Christ's thorn' popularly so called, — the Paliuruss aculeatus of botanists, — fulfils all the required conditions; having both branches and leaves studded with thorns, being flexible enough to be easily 1 plaited 'into a crown, and being also 'common on all the rocky hills 'of the country. The Arabs call it samûr, which seems to correspond with the Hebrew שָׁמִיר shamir, the 'brier' of the prophecy of Isaiah (v. 6; vii. 23, &c).

Algum (or Almug) Trees (Heb. אֵלְמוּנִּים אַלְנּוּמִּים).

'The navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees and precious stones. And the king made of the almug trees pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house, harps also and psalteries for singers: there came no such almug trees, nor were seen unto this day.' — 1 Kings x. 11, 12.

'Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and algum trees, out of Lebanon.' — 2 Chron. ii. 8.

'And the king made of the algum trees terraces to the house of the Lord . . . there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.' — Ch. ix. 11.

The above-quoted verses from the Old Testament comprise all that is authoritatively known concerning the ALGUM or ALGUM TREE, the wood of which was employed by the Wise King of Israel for such important purposes; and thus the first timber-tree which in alphabetical order claims our notice exemplifies the difficulties of ancient and Oriental botany. Enough, however, is stated to indicate a valuable wood of varied capabilities, growing somewhere in the Lebanon district within the dominions of the Tyrian monarch, yet evidently indigenous to some other country where it grew to a size and excellence unattained in Syria. There is no need to suppose, with Rosenmüller, that the writer of the Book of Chronicles was in error in affirming that Solomon asked for Algum trees from Lebanon, Hiram, like his Jewish contemporary, like Nebuchadnezzar and other Eastern kings, mayhave formed plantations of foreign trees, and may have so far succeeded as to make the algummim (אַלְנּוּמִּים) available for economic use, though inferior to those grown on their native soil. No experiments, Evelyn remarks, 'are more kingly than that of planting for posterity/

What that native soil was must remain a matter of some uncertainty, the more so as the situation of Ophir cannot be determined. Professor Max Müller has observed that the name of this tree, like those translated in 1 Kings x. 22, 'ivory,' 'apes,' and 'peacocks,' is of foreign origin; and he identifies the word with the Sanskrit valguka, which denotes the red sandal-wood of commerce, Pterocarpus santalinus of botanists. This tree is of the leguminous or pod-bearing order, and inhabits the Coromandel Coast and Ceylon, where it grows to the size of a walnut tree. The wood is heavy, of a black colour externally, but red inside. In the East it is employed in the manufacture of idols, and for musical instruments, examples of which may be seen in the Indian Museum at South Kensington. In Europe it is chiefly used for the purposes of the dyer and colour-maker. Allied species of Pterocarpus yield the products known as dragon's blood and gum kino.

Solomon's artificers appear to have fashioned the Algum wood into columns, or, more probably, stairs or balustrades, for the temple and palace; and into harps, of two or more kinds, for the service of the sanctuary.

Ash (Heb. אׂרֶן oren).

'He planteth an ash (R. V. fir tree), and the rain doth nourish it.' — Isaiah xliv. 14.

The word rendered as above, in the Authorized and Revised Versions respectively, occurs only in the passage quoted. The Septuagint and oldest Latin Version translate it 'PINE,' and one of these conifers suits the context very well. Of the four species growing in Palestine, the Aleppo pine (Pinus Halepensis) is cultivated on the coast as a barrier against the drifting sands; the pinaster (P. pinaster) is grown near Beirut; the larger kinds of juniper (represented by seven species in Palestine) would also be reckoned among 'pines;' and J. thurifera may be the 'large cedar 'mentioned by Pliny as growing in Phoenicia and furnishing 'images of the gods².' Virgil speaks of the beauty of the pine when planted in gardens, and advises the Roman bee-master to cultivate this tree round his hives, supplying 'friendly showers 'with his own hand³. We may safely conclude that one or more of the pine tribe above mentioned was in the mind of the prophet in his contemptuous portraiture of the idolaters of his day. (See FlR.)

Bay Tree (Heb. אֶזְרָח ezrach).

'I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree' (R. V. a green tree in its native soil). — Psalm xxxvii. 35.

Although the BAY LAUREL (Laurus nobilis) is found in the Holy Land, on the Carmel range, on Tabor, and on the hills of Gilead east of Jordan, it seems tolerably certain that David's simile has been correctly interpreted by the Revisers, as having a more general reference; the Hebrew word meaning simply 'native born.' If the Psalmist had designed to mention any particular tree he would probably have chosen the stately cedar, as Ezekiel afterwards did with a similar object (ch. xxxi), and not the comparatively humble though fragrant evergreen. To him (unlike the classic poets) the laurel would suggest neither sacred nor poetic associations. We cannot therefore admit the tree of Phœbus among Bible plants even on the plea quaintly urged by the author of the Religio Medici, who was 'unwilling to exclude 'the bay 'from the honour of having its name in Scripture.'

Box (Heb. תְּאַשּׁוּר teashshur).

'The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together.' — Isaiah lx. 13.

Although mentioned but twice, or at most thrice, in Scripture, there appears sufficient grounds for accepting the rendering of our English Version in the case of the familiar BOX-TREE (Buxus sempervirens). Though not among the giants of the forest, it has a very wide range of distribution from Western Europe to China and Persia, flourishing in the Levant, and under favourable conditions attaining a height of thirty feet. It is fond of a cretaceous soil, and grows luxuriantly on Boxhill, Surrey, and in other special localities in Bucks, Gloucestershire, and Kent. We are not surprised therefore to find it on the chalk of Lebanon in the present day, as in the time of the prophet Isaiah. When well-developed, the box is by no means devoid of external grace; it is accordingly promised in the passage above cited 'to beautify 'the restored 'sanctuary 'in Messianic days. The Persian poets also compare a beautiful woman to a box-tree; Virgil speaks with admiration of the c waving box-groves of Cytorus⁴; 'and Ovid alludes to its continual verdancy⁵. The wood of the box is fine and durable, and its employment in modern wood-engraving is too well known to need description. The Roman poets allude to its uses in turning and inlaying, and for making flutes; but apparently the Tyrians had long before constructed the benches of their galleys of box and inlaid them with ivory. Such at least seems to be the preferable rendering of Ezek. xxvii. 6, 'They have made thy benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood' (R. V.).

The box-tree is the subject of another prophetic promise in Isaiah xli. 19, where it is said, £I will set in the desert [i. e. the Arabah, or dry southern part of the Jordan valley) the fir tree, the pine, and the box tree together.' (See under Fir, &c.)

Cedar (Heb. אֶרֶז erez).

'The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which He hath planted.' — Psalm civ. 16.

The extensive and important tribe to which the pines, cedars, cypresses, junipers, firs, larches, and other well-known woodland trees belong, is represented in Palestine by seven species of juniper, four of pine, the common cypress, and — grandest of all the forms of vegetation known to the Hebrews — the CEDAR OF LEBANON.

This order (the Coniferæ or cone-bearers of botanists) is extensively diffused through the old and new worlds, and though not remarkable for the number of its contained species, covers districts of vast extent in the northern temperate zone. It includes the giants of the vegetable kingdom — the pines of Norfolk Island and of the Rocky Mountains, and the still loftier Sequoias of the Yosemite Valley, California; while several coniferous genera are remarkable for their longevity, such as the pine, cypress, and yew. Of the last-named, there are individual trees in our own country whose age is computed at from 2000 to 3000 years.

Coniferous trees invariably give character to the scenery amidst which they grow. The lofty tapering trunk, the gradations of tint in the needle-like evergreen foliage, and in some kinds the horizontal spread of the crown of leaves, give an aspect of stately and solemn grandeur to groves and forests of cone-bearing trees; and we cease to wonder at the association of yews and cypresses with the quiet resting-places of the dead.

Of all this interesting tribe none possesses an historical celebrity comparable to that of the Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus Libani). It is the chief representative of the cedars of Western Asia, though a variety with smaller leaves has been discovered in the island of Cyprus. The Atlantic Cedar (C. Atlantica) is a native of Algeria and Morocco; while in the Far East grows the deodar (C. Deodara), the well-known cedar of the Himalayas, regarded by some botanists as a variety of C. Libani.

The range of the true Cedar of Lebanon, though not (as was once supposed) restricted to the particular locality resorted to by a long succession of ancient and modern travellers, finds its chief habitat in the ranges of Taurus and Lebanon; the latter being its southernmost limit. Shorn, as it doubtless is, of much of its pristine glory, 'the forest of Lebanon 'still numbers between four and five hundred trees; the trunk of the largest specimen being 47 feet in circumference, and its height from 90 to 100 feet. The physiognomy of this noble tree is familiar to English eyes from its frequent occurrence in groves, gardens, and plantations. A tradition ascribes to Queen Elizabeth the planting of a cedar at Hendon Place, in Middlesex, where it seems that a tree of that species was destroyed by a hurricane in 1779. But, at any rate, Cedars of Lebanon were introduced into this country before the close of the seventeenth century, since which time they have become naturalized, ripening their cones readily in our uncertain climate, though not attaining to the stature of their Syrian congeners.

Almost every traveller in Northern Palestine has recorded his impressions of the principal grove of cedars now remaining near Kadisha; and these descriptions would fill a volume. A quotation may, however, be fitly given from the glowing pages of Lamartine, and from the more scientific observations of the Rev. Canon Tristram.

'At some distance on the left,' wrote M. de Lamartine in 1833, 'in a kind of semicircular hollow formed by the last curves of Lebanon, we observed a large black spot upon the snow, — which was the celebrated clump of cedars. They crown, like a diadem, the brow of the mountain; they overlook all the numberless spacious villages that slope away beneath them; the sea and the sky blend in their horizon.

'The Arabs of all sects entertain a traditional veneration for these trees. They attribute to them not only a vegetative power which enables them to live eternally, but also an intelligence which causes them to manifest signs of wisdom and foresight, similar to those of instinct in animals and reason in man. . . . Alas! notwithstanding all, "Bashan languishes: Carmel and the flower of Lebanon wither;" these trees diminish in every succeeding age. Travellers formerly counted thirty or forty; more recently seventeen; more recently still, only a dozen. There are now but seven; these, however, from their size and general appearance, may be fairly presumed to have existed in Biblical times.'

Thirty years later, Canon Tristram described the same impressive scene: — The snow had been so far melted by the summer's sun that we were able to ascend by the highest pass, very close to the summit of Lebanon, 10,000 feet high, and descend almost directly upon the cedars. . . . No sooner had we surmounted the pass, than one of those sudden panoramas which only such an elevation could afford burst upon us by surprise. . . . In the nearer foreground was a sort of hollow, or basin, opening out to the west — the origin of the romantic Kadisha [river]. It was bare and rocky, and its sides were fringed here and there with the rough knolls which marked the deposits of ancient glaciers, the "moraines" of the Lebanon. All was brown and bare, save on one dark spot, where stood a clump of trees, the famous cedar-grove. Viewed from above, the effect of that grove is much more remarkable than when, as is generally the case, it is approached from below. . . . A few separate trees stood out from the mass, but the general appearance of the grove was of a thick clump, as though it had been a fragment of some ancient forest.

'From the top of the pass, it seemed as though in a few minutes we might reach the cedars; but we had to wind for two hours down the rocky slope. . . . The grove itself was vocal with life. . . . We picketed our horses under one of the ancient patriarchs of the forest.

'The trees are not too close, nor are they entirely confined to the grove. Though the patriarchs are of enormous growth, they are no higher than the younger trees, many of which reach a circumference of eighteen feet. In the topmost boughs, ravens, hooded crows, kestrels, hobbys, and wood-owls were secreted in abundance, but so lofty are the trees that the birds were out of reach of ordinary shot. . . . The breeze as it soughed through the dark boughs seemed to breathe sounds of solemnity and_ awe, and to proclaim them to be " the trees of the Lord/5 " the cedars of Lebanon which He hath planted." '

Other groves occur at no great distance, one of considerable extent, and another above the site of the ancient Gebal, whence Hiram's artificers came (1 Kings v. 18, marg.).

By the Hebrew poets, as every Bible reader knows, these forests on their northern borders were regarded with sacred though not with superstitious awe. The cedars were the type of power and majesty, of grandeur and beauty, of strength and permanence: — 'trees of Jehovah' planted by His right hand among the 'great mountains; 'masterpieces of His creative skill; matchless in lofty stature, wide-spreading shade, perpetual verdure, refreshing perfume, and unfading fruitfulness. Some of the finest imagery in Old Testament song is drawn from this oft-frequented source. The mighty conquerors of olden days, the despots of Assyria and the Pharaohs of Egypt, the proud and idolatrous monarchs of Judah, the Hebrew commonwealth itself, the warlike Amorites of patriarchal times, and the moral majesty of the Messianic age, are all compared to the towering cedar in its regal loftiness and supremacy. (See Isaiah ii. 13; Ezek. xvii. 3, 22, 23; xxxi. 3-18; Amos ii. 9; Zech. xi. 1, 2, &c.) It was the boast of Sennacherib that he would destroy, after the manner of his nation, as shown by the cuneiform inscriptions, the vegetable glory of Lebanon (2 Kings xix. 23); and in like manner the cedars and 'firs 'are represented as exulting over the downfall of the Babylonian power, saying, 'Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us 5 (Isaiah xiv. 8)6. The passage just quoted from Ezekiel xxxi. forms part of a magnificent description of the giant tree and of the almost superhuman grandeur of which it is made the emblem. Though generally the type of outward exaltation, the cedar, in its steady and continual growth, is fitly likened to the spiritual progress of the righteous man (Psalm xcii. 12).

Cedars are mentioned but once in the Pentateuch, in Numb. xxiv. 6, where Balaam, who had doubtless seen them growing amidst his native mountains (xxiii. 7), compares the far-stretching encampments of the Israelite tribes in the Jordan valley to 'cedar trees beside the waters.'

Turning to more prosaic allusions, the frequent references in the Old Testament to its economic uses abundantly prove the high value which the Hebrews set upon the wood of this tree. Its soundness and freedom from knots, its almost unlimited durability, and its agreeable colour and fragrance, fully account for its employment in the best class of public and private buildings. In this country the growth is too rapid to afford a durable wood; but in its native forests the timber is of superior excellence; in accordance with the statements of ancient writers, whether Oriental or Classical.

It is in the great architectural achievements of Solomon that the cedar comes into special prominence. The chief wood-work of the first Temple and of the royal palaces (like that of David, 1 Chron. xiv. 1) was of this material, one of the latter edifices being named 'the house of the forest of Lebanon'(1 Kings vi, vii). The preference shown by the monarch for this wood led to its becoming as common in the Hebrew capital during his reign as the inferior timber of the sycomore-fig⁷ had been in previous times (1 Kings x. 27; 1 Chron. ix. 27; Song of Solomon i. 17). The later kings of Judah had similar dwellings (Jer. xxii. 14, 15), and the same is implied of the Assyrian monarchs by the prophet Zephaniah (ii. 14) in his denunciation of Nineveh. In the British Museum are some fragments of wood, brought by Sir A. H. Layard from the Assyrian metropolis, and which Mr. Carruthers has identified as cedar. The Tyrians are said by Ezekiel (xxvii. 5) to have used the trunks of Lebanon cedars, as later seafaring nations those of 'Norwegian pine,'

'to be the masts
Of some tall amiral.'

And Herod the Great, according to the testimony of Josephus, used cedar-wood in his restoration of the second Temple.

The above and other historical references afford some idea of the enormous consumption of these noble forest trees by the Tyrians, on behalf of David (1 Chron. xiv. 1; xxii. 4) and Solomon, and, as we may be sure, on their own account in equal or larger measure. If to these and like demands upon the Syrian forests we add the wanton destruction of useful trees by invading armies, we need not wonder at the diminished glories of Lebanon, or doubt the former extent of its pines and cedars, but rather feel surprise that the c shadowy shroud 'of vegetation has not long since been rent away.

Other nations beside those we have mentioned are said to have valued the cedar. It was imported by the Egyptians from Syria for various kinds of cabinet-work and coffins for their embalmed dead. Rameses, the Sesostris of the historians, is even said to have built ships of this material. It was used in the great Persian edifices at Persepolis, in the first temple of Diana at Ephesus, and that of Apollo at Utica, where the age of the cedar timbers was computed at 2000 years. Believing the wood to be both imperishable and antiseptic, valuable manuscripts were committed to cabinets of cedar-wood; and, according to Vitruvius and Horace, books were smeared with oil of cedar in order to preserve them from decay. 'How can those who write only for gain (asks the poet) produce works that shall deserve to be anointed with cedar or enclosed in cypress⁸? 'The same oil, we are told by Herodotus, was used by Egyptian embalmers to preserve the body from decay. There is, however, no mention in Scripture of any economic use of the cedar, despite the high value set on it, except as timber.

Virgil⁹ mentions the wood as employed in his day for dwellings, for images of the gods, and as burnt for its perfume; but Dr. Daubeny is of opinion that the Latin word cedrus included also the known species of juniper, and that one or more of the larger kinds of the latter may have been intended by the poet.

The remark just quoted may be applied to the account given in the Book of Leviticus of the ceremonial observances connected with the cleansing of leprosy (ch. xiv) in which 'cedar-wood 'is directed to be taken, as also in the sacrificial rites described in Numb, xix; in both cases, no doubt, with an intelligible symbolical meaning. As the wood of the true cedar was not obtainable in the Sinaitic wilderness, we may fairly conclude that some closely allied tree is intended; and the savin (Juniperus sabina), a common bush in the peninsula, satisfactorily answers all the requirements of the above passages. It grows in Southern Europe and South-western Asia, and is not uncommon in English shrubberies. Oil of savin is also used in medicine.

Chesnut (Heb. עַרְמוׄן armon).

'The chesnut trees (R. V. plane trees) were not like his branches.' — Ezek. xxxi. 8.

As the chesnut is not a native of Palestine, some other rendering of the Hebrew word armon must be sought for; and botanists are agreed that the ORIENTAL PLANE (Platanus orientalis) is the tree mentioned in Gen. xxx. 37, and in the Book of Ezekiel as above quoted. This is one of the most agreeable and conspicuous objects in the vegetation of the river-side and other watered districts of Syria and the Holy Land. It grows wild on the banks of streams in the Lebanon district, and is cultivated wherever sufficient moisture can be found. It is chiefly remarkable for the umbrageous shade which it affords, so grateful in the warmer regions of Europe and Asia. This is due to its broad palmated leaves, and to the horizontal growth of its branches, yielding a perfect and delightful protection from the sun's heat. To this the prophet Ezekiel undoubtedly points in the passage just cited. He is comparing the Assyrian monarchy to a majestic cedar, and adds, 'The fir trees were not like his boughs, and the plane (chesnut) trees were not like his branches', nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.' Casual as the botanical allusion is, it is sufficient to indicate the estimation in which the plane tree was held by the contemporaries of Ezekiel. Under favourable conditions it grows to a height of seventy feet, and yields a white and fine-grained wood suited for various economic purposes. It is said that the Turks formerly employed plane-wood for ship-building. The bark is smooth and whitish, and scales off annually in patches; this may illustrate Jacob's stratagem (Gen. xxx. 37). The flowers are minute, in globular and pendent catkins, whence a number of downy seeds are shed in the autumn.

The range of P. orientalis is from Europe through Western Asia to Cashmere; in the Western Hemisphere the American plane (P. occidentalis), an allied species, replaces it in corresponding latitudes. Both have been naturalized in this country for more than two hundred years; and Lord Bacon is credited with having planted some of the earliest specimens of the Oriental plane in his grounds at Verulam.

From the Greek and Roman historians it would seem that an almost extravagant value was set on the plane tree. Pliny says that it was introduced into Southern Europe from Asia Minor via Sicily, and that some individuals in his day were of marvellous dimensions. A magnificent specimen growing in Lycia contained in its hollow trunk a room about eighty feet in diameter, in which a Roman proconsul entertained eighteen guests at a banquet. A like story is told of a tree growing in the garden of Caligula's villa at Velitra. In Athens and other Greek cities avenues of plane were planted, as in Persia to this day, forming cloistered walks for the pupils of Plato and Aristotle; and under their shade in an island of the Levant, called Plataniste, the young Spartans used to perform their athletic exercises. A splendid group grows on the shores of the Bosphorus, the largest being 90 feet in height and 150 in circumference. It was under some such gigantic specimen as these that the dissolute and wayward Xerxes halted with his enormous army on his way to invade Greece; and here he frittered away an interval of critical importance in paying mad compliments to this noble plant.

The allusion of the Jewish prophet to the spreading foliage of the plane is corroborated by a passage in the apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus, where wisdom is likened to 'a plane tree 'which has 1 grown up by the water '(ch. xxiv. 14).

Cypress (Heb. תִּרְזָה tirzah).

'He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak.' — Isaiah xliv. 14.

As the word תִּרְוָה (tirzah) occurs only in the passage above quoted, there is little in the way of internal evidence to determine its precise meaning. It is derived from תָּרֵז (taraz), signifying 'to be hard;' and as it is closely connected with the oak, the rendering of the Revised Version, 'holm tree' — following the oldest Latin translation — seems a probable one. We learn from Pausanias that the evergreen oak was used in the manufacture of idols, and we know that among the species growing in Palestine the VALONIA OAKk (Quercus ægilops) reaches noble proportions, and forms forests in Bashan and Galilee. It was also regarded by classic writers as the loftiest of its kind in Greece, and as yielding the best timber. The acorns of this species, according to Hooker, are used in Syria for food. We may therefore accept the above translation as substantially correct; though, botanically regarded, the name 'holm oak'should be restricted to the evergreen oak of Southern Europe (Q. ilex).

Ebony (Heb. הָבְנִים hobnim).

'The men of Dedan. . . brought thee horas of ivory and ebony? — Ezek. xxvii. 15.

Dedan, a name occurring twice in the chapter above quoted, represents, as we find from comparing Gen. x. 7 with xxv. 3, two different tribes; the one Cushite, the other Semitic, and descended from Abraham by Keturah. Geographically, therefore, two different localities are also indicated as inhabited by Dedanim. The Semitic tribe probably inhabited some part of Idumea, and supplied from the wool of their flocks chariot-cloths for the nobles and soldiers of Tyre (Ezek. xxvii. 20). The 'ivory' and 'ebony' were obtained from the Farther East, through the Cushite race, who seem to have settled in Arabia and occupied themselves in commerce (ver. 1 5).

The black-hued wood familiar to us under the name of ebony is one of several species of the genus Diospyros, natives chiefly of tropical India and Ceylon, whence so many products were brought, in and after the days of Solomon, into Syria and Palestine via Arabia. It is however represented also in Europe and North America, and a recent writer gives South Africa and the Mauritius as additional localities. This confirms the remark of the poet Virgil, 'India alone yields the black ebony¹⁰,'and that of Pliny, Herodotus, and Lucan, that ebony came from Ethiopia. The BLACK EBONY (D. melanoxylon) is brought from the Coromandel Coast; D. Ebenaster is termed the bastard ebony of Ceylon; while the allied Coromandel wood, with its beautifully-variegated grain, is obtained from the same island.

The trees of this genus are large and slow of growth, with simple leaves and a bell-shaped flower. The outer wood is white and soft, but the inside turns hard and black with age; thus acquiring the properties which have rendered it so much valued by ancient and modern nations. Dr. Bonar remarks that in travelling in Palestine and the Desert his dragoman carried an ebony staff as his wand of office. The Egyptians were well acquainted with the use of ebony, as may be seen by the boxes, images, and other articles, wholly or partially made of that wood, in our National collection.

Fir (Heb. בְּרוׂשׁ berosh).

Pine (Heb. תִּדְהָר tidhar).

'The fir tree, the pine tree, and the box.': — Isaiah lx. 1 3.

In speaking of the cedars of Lebanon reasons have been given for including the junipers under the term used by the Old Testament writers to denote those mightier trees of the forest. The word berosh (uniformly translated 'fir' in the Authorized Version) seems, in like manner, to comprehend all the other coniferous trees of Palestine. These consist of four species of PINE, and the funereal Cypress. The true firs (abies) are not found in that country; but the distinction is scarcely recognized except by botanists. In common parlance the Pinus sylvestris of our own islands is called the 'Scotch fir'; but, botanically, the pines have needle-like leaves in clusters of two, three, or five; and the scales of their cones do not fall off. The leaves of the firs are more flattened, do not grow in clusters, and the cone-scales are deciduous or falling. The native pines of Palestine are the Pinaster (P. pinaster), the Aleppo or maritime (P. Halepensis) the stone (P. pinea), and the Pyrenean [P. Pyrenaica). The cypress is the common species (C. sempervirens) the 'mournful cypress' of Western Asia and Southern Europe.

An examination of the Scripture allusions to 'cedars 'and 'fir trees 'will show that these represent two groups of conifers closely associated in their native habitats and in the value set upon them; 'firs,' however, being deemed inferior to the majestic cedars (cf. i Kings v. 8, 10; 2 Chron. ii. 8; Song of Sol. i. 17; Isaiah xiv. 8; Ezek. xxvii. 5; Zech. xi. 1, 2). The תִּדְהָר (tidhar), rendered 'pine' in Isaiah xli. 19 and lx. 13, is ranked with trees of recognized beauty and importance.

Nearly one-half of the Biblical references to this family are in connexion with Solomon's architectural enterprises, cedar and pine-wood supplying the timber for temple and palaces. With these we may include the cypress on the authority of Josephus. David and his choir performed on instruments constructed of 'fir' (2 Sam. vi. 5). The prophet Isaiah thrice speaks in terms which suggest the value or beauty, or both, of the pine tribe (ch. xli. 19; lv. 13; lx. 13). Nahum, in his splendid description of the invading armies of Media (ch. ii. 3, R. V.), seems to imply that the warriors' spear-shafts were of this material; and Ezekiel states that the Lebanon pine-woods supplied the Tyrians with planking for their ships (ch. xxvii. 5). So Virgil long afterwards wrote of the value of 'the pine for ships¹¹.' The lofty and graceful stature of the cypress is twice alluded to in the apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus (xxiv. 13 and 1. 10), as the thick foliage of the pines is associated by Ezekiel with that of the cedars (ch. xxxi. 8). The fruit is but once mentioned, in the prophet Hosea (xiv. 8), 'I am like a green fir tree; from Me is thy fruit found.'

The pines inhabit the temperate regions of both hemispheres, and have been known from time immemorial as among the most useful of cone-bearing trees. At least three of the four Syrian species, above enumerated, besides the cypress, were known to classical writers, and are still valued on the continent of Europe. The pinaster or cluster pine forms a small forest on the sand-hills near Beirut, where (like P. Halepensis) it has probably been planted to check the incursions of the drifting soil. It has also been employed in reclaiming the barren landes on the western coast of France. It grows in Italy as far south as Genoa, where it gives place to the more important Aleppo or maritime pine. This is the commonest species in Palestine, ranging from Lebanon to the hills south of Jerusalem, and from the maritime plain on the west to the mountains beyond Jordan. Travellers have repeatedly recorded how a c zone of pines 'marks the change of temperature due to elevation on these Syrian heights. Carmel has still its pine-woods, but these, like other timber-trees, were much more numerous and extensive in former ages. The wood of the Aleppo pine is said to be somewhat inferior; but this may only be due to local causes.

The stone pine, which is common on the northern slopes of Lebanon, is probably the species which the Romans used to plant in gardens and around bee-hives. Until lately there existed near Ravenna a magnificent forest of these pines, nearly forty miles in extent, and compared, not extravagantly, to a grove of palms for grace and beauty. This species is not only a characteristic feature in the Italian landscape, but also yields a fine-grained wood; while the kernels of its seeds have been much esteemed as a delicacy from ancient times, jars containing them preserved in honey having been found in the larders of the buried city of Pompeii. It is possible that the Hebrews may have known of the edible qualities of these pine-seeds.

The Pyrenean pine also grows on Lebanon as well as on the range from which it derives its specific name. The wood is of similar value to that of the preceding kind. Bishop Arculf, one of the early travellers in Palestine (A.D. 700), mentions a fir (pine?) wood 'covering a low hill some three miles north of Hebron.' He suggestively adds that the timber was carried to Jerusalem for fuel. Such statements account for the disappearance of many a grove and forest of olden time. The same traveller says the Sea of Tiberias was 'surrounded with thick woods.'

The cypress was doubtless included in the language of praise and admiration accorded to 'fir-trees' by Old Testament poets and seers; and it is not unlikely that either the cypress or the stone pine may be the tidhar of the prophet Isaiah — a tree not particularized elsewhere; while the special durability of its timber was fully recognized among woods of a like kind. But there is no trace of that association of the cypress with the resting-places of the dead which is so conspicuous among the modern Orientals, even in Palestine itself, and has prevailed in Southern Europe for at least two thousand years. Horace reminds his friend that of all the trees he had planted none save the cypress would be able to 'serve their master beyond the present brief stage of existence¹².' The oldest tree in Europe is a cypress in Lombardy, which, tradition says, existed in Julius Caesar's days; and we read that the doors of St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome were made of cypress wood; laws were inscribed on tablets of cypress; heroes were buried in coffins of this material, and the Egyptians imported it for a like purpose, together with cedar and fir.

This tree is not uncommon in gardens and cemeteries in our own country, as in France, though the date of its introduction is not known; but its home is in regions more free from excess of moisture, and characterized by a higher summer temperature than Great Britain.

Gopher Wood (Heb. נֹּּפֶר gopher).

'Make thee an ark of gopher wood.' — Gen. vi. 14.

The word נֹּּפֶר [gopher) occurs nowhere in Scripture except in the above passage, and is therefore wisely left untranslated in both our modern Versions. A very ancient tradition, however, asserts that the ark built by Noah was of CYPRESS wood. A like statement is made by historians as to the fleet of ships built by the Assyrian queen Semiramis, and of the armadas constructed by Alexander and sent forth from Babylon. We know, moreover, that the cypress, and more than one species of pine, with other resinous trees, are still found in the regions watered by the Tigris and Euphrates¹³. It may therefore be at least affirmed that there is no improbability in the traditional view., though nothing can be inferred from the original term employed by the writer of the Book of Genesis.

Heath (Heb. עַרְעָר arar, עֲרוֹעֵר aroer).

'He shall be like the heath in the desert.' — Jer. xvii. 6.

Every reader is familiar with the beautiful tribe of plants known as 'heaths 'and 'heather,' both those which carpet our native moorlands, and the more luxuriant Ericas of the Cape, so frequent in English conservatories. But the hills of Palestine, while abounding in honey-yielding flowers, never afford to the traveller a view of tracts

'Where the wild heath displays its purple dyes.'

The order is scarcely represented in Syria, the lovely arbutus or strawberry tree excepted; and not at all in the districts bordering Canaan on the south. Hence it is easy to pronounce the Authorized rendering of the Hebrew words arar and aroer, in the above passage and in ch. xlviii. 6 of the same book respectively, a manifest error, unfortunately perpetuated in the Revised Version. The latter gives, as a marginal alternative, 'a tamarisk,' which from a geographical point of view is fairly admissible. But it may be well to examine both the word and the context. In the former of the two passages cited the prophet contrasts the godly man with him who 'maketh flesh his arm'; comparing the former to 'a tree planted by the waters,' that 'spreadeth out her roots' by the 'flowing river,' and the latter to 'the heath in the desert'; adding, he 'shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.' In ch. xlviii. 6, Moab is denounced, and her citizens bidden to 'flee. . . and be like the heath in the wilderness?

It seems evident therefore that the first reference is to the barren and desolate districts common in the neighbourhood of 'the Salt Sea' and the region further south, rather than to the Wilderness of Sinai; and to some bare and naked shrub, just able to exist in the ungenial soil, but deriving no access of life and verdure from the return of the spring. There are many weird and stunted shrubs in that 'wilderness' which well illustrate the prophet's simile; and as in the other portion of the figure no specific 'tree' is mentioned, it is fair to conclude that in this the allusion is equally general — 'a naked bush in the desert.'

The reference seems to be identical in ch. xlviii. 6; here the margin of the Authorized Version has 'a naked tree,' which might advantageously have been retained by the Revisers.

Juniper (Heb. רֹחֶם rothem). '

He lay and slept under a juniper tree.' — 1 Kings xix. 5.

The leguminous or pod-bearing order of plants, to which so many important vegetables belong, is, like the labiate order, very largely represented in Palestine, more so indeed than any other¹⁴, and there, as in our own land, it serves both for use and ornament.

In the 'south country' and in the 'great and terrible wilderness,' in the warm districts surrounding the Dead Sea, and in the picturesque ravines which cleave the hills east and west of the Jordan valley, grows one of the loveliest of Bible plants — a species of broom or genista. Travellers have dwelt with delight upon the beauty of its pink-white blossoms, clustered on the hill-sides or dotting the open plains, and exhaling an odour as sweet as that of an English beanfield. It is called by the Arabs rit'm or retem) and hence has received from botanists the technical name of Retama or Genista rætam. The characteristics of the plant correspond so closely with what is stated of the rothem (incorrectly translated 'juniper'in our Versions) that there seems no reason to doubt the identity. The dispirited prophet in his flight from the furious Jezebel rested and slept under a rothem tree; so the modern Arabs are glad to avail themselves of the shelter of the retem, which grows to a height of from eight to ten feet. Dean Stanley and Drs. Robinson and Bonar, as well as other travellers, also speak of its slight but grateful shade in the 1 weary land 'of the south. In Psalm cxx. 4 'coals of juniper 'are mentioned as of proverbial fierceness; and we are informed that the charcoal of the retem is so highly valued that the Bedouins destroy the shrub in large numbers in order to sell the produce for the Egyptian markets. The patriarch Job (xxx. 4) speaks of outcasts being driven by the presence of famine to 'cut up juniper roots for their meat'; a striking figure of speech, since the roots of the desert broom are bitter and nauseous. Mr. Smith, late of Kew, in his little work on Bible Plants repeats the suggestion of the botanist Ursinus, that the edible part of the retem root may have been a parasitic growth which forms upon it as the 'broomrapes 'do on our native species, and was formerly prized by the Maltese for its medicinal virtues, and, it is said, its fitness for food when boiled. The Arabs plant the retem above the remains of their dead.

One of the stations of the Israelites in their wanderings was named Rithmah, doubtless from the abundance of the rothem in the neighbourhood (Numb, xxxiii. 18).

The Spaniards apply the name retamas to the closely allied species known as Spanish broom, planted by them in shifting sands, and given to their goats for food. The poet of Roman husbandry sings of 'pliant' and 'lowly genistæ' yielding fodder for the flocks and shade to the shepherd¹⁵. Our native broom figures more than once in history, and has served both for food and physic. The old herbalist Gerarde gives a long account of its virtues in the cure of human ills.

Mulberry (Heb. בָּכָא baka).

'When thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees.' — 2 Sam. v. 24.

Although the black and white mulberry are extensively cultivated in Palestine at the present day, when the production of silk affords so important a means of subsistence to the inhabitants of the Lebanon district, the mulberry (Motus) does not seem to be mentioned in the Old or New Testament.

In the English Versions 'mulberry tree 'is given as the equivalent of the Hebrew baka in the parallel narratives of one of David's victories over the Philistines (3 Sam. v. 23 and 1 Chron. xiv. 14), and in Psalm Ixxxiv. 6 as a proper name ('Valley of Baca,' see margin). It is derived from a root בָּכָא (bakah), signifying 'to fall in drops,' and thus c to weep.' The most natural interpretation of the incident in David's history is that a sign was given him as a test of obedience, and a pledge of success in the coming struggle with his powerful foes. This sign was the sound of a rushing blast through the trees in the valley, emblematic of the presence of Him who 'walketh upon the wings of the wind.' It would accord with that 'fitness of things 'which so remarkably characterizes the instruments chosen for the manifestation of supernatural power, that the tree selected in this instance should be one which would naturally be responsive to the action of wind. Among such the Poplars have long been conspicuous for their 'trembling' 'shivering,' and uaking 'movements when the slightest breath of air is stirring — a circumstance due to the length and horizontal flattening of the leaf-stalks in several species, notably the aspen (P. tremula) with its 'many twinkling leaves'¹⁶. Four species grow in Palestine: the Black, White, and Lombardy poplars, well known in Europe, and a species called P. Euphralica, which fringes the Jordan and other rivers of the country. To this tree we venture to think, with Canon Tristram, the historian of the Books of Samuel and Chronicles makes reference; and that through its quivering foliage the promised 'marching 'of the winds gave audible signal to the King of Israel and his soldiers, as they stood on the heights beyond the 'valley of the giants.' (See Josh. xv. 8.)

In the plains of the Lebanon district, the trunks of poplars, and occasionally those of willow, are used for the rough beams which support the ponderous roofs of the houses.

Myrtle (Heb. הֲדַס hadas).

'Instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.' — Isaiah lv. 13.

This fragrant and beautiful shrub, though universally admired, has received but casual notice from the sacred writers; yet these are sufficient to show that it was by no means overlooked among the vegetable products of Palestine. It is named but once in the historical books, when the returned Jews under Nehemiah (viii. 15) fetched branches of MYRTLE and other trees from the Mount of Olives for the construction of booths at the Feast of Tabernacles — a custom still observed by their countrymen. In Isaiah's glowing predictions of future prosperity it is promised that the myrtle shall be planted 'in the wilderness; 'and again, that the myrtle shall replace the 'brier 'and the 'pine tree' the 'thorn.' In the vision of Zechariah (i. 8, 10, 11) a grove of myrtle trees is represented in a 'dell,' apparently in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. And the myrtle appears once more in the name of Hadassah, the fair cousin of Mordecai, better known to us under her Persian title of Esther (ii. 7).

Some botanists regard Persia as the native country of the myrtle, whence it spread through Western Asia and into the regions surrounding the Mediterranean. It is found wild in Europe as far north as Marseilles, and is cultivated in the warmer parts of our own land, into which it seems to have been brought in the reign of Queen Elizabeth — it is said by Raleigh and Sir F. Carew on their return from Spain. In the sunny South it grows to the dimensions of a tree, and few objects more delight the sense than groves of this classic plant.

The Egyptians imported the myrtle for their gardens on the banks of the Nile, and, like the Greeks and Romans, wove wreaths of honour from its dark glossy foliage. Dedicated to the Goddess of Beauty, the myrtle was regarded by the ancients as the emblem of love and peace. Among the Hebrews this shrub, according to the Rabbins, symbolized justice; but there is nothing in Scripture to support this. In Zechariah's vision the 'myrtle trees in the dell 3 appear to denote the Jewish Church in its then secluded condition, yet beautiful and fragrant even in obscurity.

It is doubtful if the ancient Hebrews employed the wood of the myrtle for the shafts of weapons, as we find the Romans did. The flowers and leaves are sold in the markets of Damascus and Jerusalem as perfumes; the French distil from the blossom a volatile oil; and the Italians extract a wine from the berries, while the buds, as in old Rome, are used as a spice. The fruit is eaten as a dessert in Cyprus at the present day.

The myrtle is of frequent occurrence in Palestine, though chiefly in the northern parts and on the western coast. It grows on Carmel, and in the glens round Jerusalem, as in Nehemiah's days; also in the neighbourhood of Hebron, and in the ravines of the trans-Jordanic hills. By the streams which issue from the ancient heritage of Reuben and Gad the myrtle flourishes in such luxuriance as to become 'almost a timber tree,' reaching a height of twenty or twenty-five feet, and with 'a trunk as thick as a man's girth.'

Oak, Teil Tree, (R.V.) Terebinth (Heb. אֵלָה elah, אֵלָּה allah, אַלּוֺן allon, אֵיל el).

'He was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above.' — Amos ii. 9.

We are accustomed to think of the oak as the special property of Englishmen, — associated with the worship of their Celtic forefathers, and supplying the 'wooden walls 'which for long ages were the chief material defences of our island, beside contributing in innumerable ways to the arts of peace, But while we possess in our woods and parks two species of OAK, Palestine owns no less than nine, beside almost as many varieties.

This fact has been somewhat obscured by the hasty assumptions of some modern writers on Biblical topography, who have maintained that the terebinth or turpentine tree (Pistachia terebinthus), and not any kind of oak (Quercus), was that to which the Hebrews gave the names above specified — all expressive of strength, like the Latin robur, and as fitly applied to the forest oaks of Palestine. The error doubtless arose from an insufficient acquaintance with those districts which lie out of the beaten tracks of European tourists, and to forgetfulness of the ravages to which the central and southern highlands of the country have been subjected. At the remote period when the land was colonized by Canaanite tribes, Western Palestine was probably as rich in oak forests as Eastern Palestine is still. Even now, Dr. Thomson, after many years 'residence, remarks: 'Beside the vast groves at the north of Tabor and on Lebanon and Hermon, in Gilead and Bashan, think of the great forests extending thirty miles at least, along the hills west of Nazareth, over Carmel, and down south beyond Caesarea Palsestina.' He adds: 'To maintain that the oak is not a striking or abundant tree in Palestine, is a piece of critical hardihood tough as the tree itself. There is no such thing in this country as a terebinth wood. . . . And, finally, the terebinth is deciduous, and therefore not a favourite shade-tree. It is very rarely planted in the courts of houses, or over tombs, or in the places of resort in villages. It is the beautiful evergreen oak that you find there.'

Some oaks are evergreen, and others deciduous, shedding their foliage in the 'fail,' as do our native species. This is an obvious distinction, and one which would be noticed even in an unscientific age. That such was the case with the ancient Hebrews we learn from two passages in the Book of Isaiah: 'Ye shall be as an oak (elah) whose leaf fadeth;' 'As a teil tree¹⁷ (elah), and as an oak (allon), whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves' (ch. i. 30; vi. 13). Following this natural classification, we find the evergreen oaks (called also ilexes and holm oaks) to be represented chiefly by the prickly evergreen or Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera), which is a native of the countries bordering the Mediterranean; the insect (coccus) from which it derives its specific name yielding the dye known as 'Turkey Red.' On the hills of Galilee and Carmel, Gilead and Bashan, it attains to magnificent proportions. The so-called 'Abraham's Oak' near Hebron is a splendid specimen of this species, twenty-two feet in circumference. And the oak of Libbeiya in the Lebanon measures thirty-seven feet in girth, and its branches cover an area whose circumference measured over ninety yards. The Arab name is Sindian. But the growth of these and other trees is prevented by their wholesale destruction, when young, for fuel.

Another abundant species is the Valonia or prickly-cupped oak (Q. ægilops), well known in the" Levant, where its acorns are used in tanning, but the Arabs eat them for food. It is most common in the north and on the hills beyond Jordan, where it predominates over the evergreen species. This seems to be the 'oak (allon) of Bashan,' and, as we have seen, may be the 'cypress' of Isaiah xliv. 14.

There are three other deciduous oaks, less common and conspicuous, in Palestine; the Oriental gall oak (Q. infectoria), which is comparatively small; and the Turkey oak (Q. cerris), and our own sessile-cupped variety (Q. sessiliflora), which are found high up on Lebanon. The Arab name for oaks is ballût — the distinction between evergreen and deciduous kinds being apparently recognized. It may be remarked that the common holm oak of Europe (Q. ilex) is rare in Syria.

Entering Palestine from the east, the Hebrew invaders could not have failed to be struck with the splendid forest vegetation of Bashan and Gilead, especially after the stunted vegetation of the desert, and even in contrast to the palms and sycomore-fig trees of Egypt. It was natural that the oak should become to them the symbol of 'strength,' and receive names conveying that meaning. Probably it was by modifications of the original root-word that the evergreen and the deciduous kinds were distinguished, the less important species of each being included with the leading representatives. And among the deciduous oaks they appear to have comprised the TEREBITNTH, or turpentine tree (Pistachia terebinthus¹⁸) because of its strong resemblance to them in outward appearance and habit, and because in the south and south-eastern part of Canaan the terebinths become numerous (though not forming woods or forests), and in Moab and Ammon, according to recent travellers, appear to replace the more hardy tree, for which the climate becomes too warm and too dry.

After a close examination of the various words above enumerated, it seems impossible to determine with certainty any verbal distinction between the oak and the terebinth, beyond perhaps this, that allon is never applied to the terebinth; in accordance with which view we find that the same word is always used for oak woods and forests¹⁹. Moreover, when, as in Isaiah vi. 13 and Hosea iv. 13, allon and elah are distinguished, allon appears to be the oak, while elah (translated 'teil tree' and 'elms' in A.V.) may be oak or terebinth. Since, however, allon is the word used to denote oaks in the plural, it must include both evergreen and deciduous species; for both the Kermes and Valonia oaks formed and still form woods and forests in Palestine.

The ordinary reader of the Old Testament may, therefore, come to conclusions as reliable as those of the philologist, by considering the context of each allusion. The following hints may be serviceable: —

1. Where the plural is used, and always where grove, wood, or forest is implied, true oaks are to be understood.

2. References to idolatrous ceremonies under the shadow of 'oaks' suggest the same conclusion, especially when 'hill-tops' and 'mountains' are specified.

3. Individual trees mentioned as landmarks may be oaks or terebinths, but the latter mainly in the warmer parts of Palestine.

(Among such references oak is mistranslated 'plane 'in some eight or nine cases; in all these passages the Revised Version gives the correction, in text or margin.)

4. The terebinth does not appear to have been applied to any economic purpose by the ancient Hebrews; though the turpentine is extracted from it by incisions in the bark at the present day.

The direct references to the oak, including all the terms cited, are not very numerous, but we must mentally include such trees in the 'forests' and 'woods' so frequently mentioned. That they were deemed not unworthy of comparison with the cedars of Lebanon we gather from such poetical allusions as Isaiah ii. 13; Amos ii. 9, etc. That the timber was valued we may infer from its being used in the manufacture of idols (Isaiah xliv. 14); while the prophet Ezekiel states (ch. xxvii. 6) that the oak-trunks of Bashan supplied oars for the Syrian galleys; it is fair therefore to conclude that the Jews utilized so durable a material in other ways.

It is probable that by the 'tree planted by the waters' of Psalm i. 3 and Jer. xvii. 8 an evergreen oak may be implied; and the same may be said of the £ great tree 'seen in vision by Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. iv. 10-12), to whom the oak was probably a familiar object in his gardens at Babylon.

Of the present and past distribution of oaks in Palestine enough has already been said. It has been also intimated that the terebinth is common in the south and south-eastern districts, but chiefly as isolated trees, some of great size and age, not unlike deciduous oaks, and like them probably forming well-known landmarks. Thus we have the 'oak'  or 'terebinth' of Shechem, Mamre, Moreh, Jabesh, Zaanaim, Tabor, and others — a custom evident enough in the topography of our own country. This tree is marked by a thick trunk and stout spreading branches; and its inconspicuous flowers are followed by oval berries, not unlike unripe grapes. It is once mentioned in the apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus (xxiv. 16): 'As the turpentine tree I stretched out my branches, and my branches are the branches of honour and grace.'

A smaller species, the LENTISK or mastick tree (P. lentiscus), is once mentioned by the latter name in the Book of Susannah (ver. 54).

It is a shrub well known in Italy and Greece as yielding the 'mastic 'of commerce. In Palestine it forms wild undergrowths in the less frequented parts of the country; and with the Christ's Thorn (Zizyphus spina Christi) constitutes the lowest belt of jungle on the eastern bank of the Lake of Galilee. This 'thorn 'may be the one alluded to in Isaiah vii. 19, lv. 13, as it is specially a plant of the Ghor and the Desert; but amidst the multitude of thorny shrubs now found in and around the Land of Promise, the identification of a particular one must be conjectural, as before remarked, except where the Hebrew and Arabic names appear to be specific and synonymous.

Oil Tree (Heb. עֵץ שֶׁמֶן ets shemen).

'I will plant in the wilderness . . . the oil tree' (R. V. marg. oleaster). — Isaiah xli. 19.

Although, as we shall see hereafter, the olive was the chief and almost the only source of the oil mentioned in Scripture, another 'oil tree 'is mentioned in three several books of the Old Testament, though the Authorized Version gives an inaccurate rendering in two cases, and in one of these the Revisers have been equally misleading. The passage cited above is correctly translated, 'I will plant in the wilderness [probably the scene of the Israelite wanderings is intended] the cedar . . and the oil tree' (lit. 'tree of oil').

The same words are used in 1 Kings vi. 23, &c, to denote the wood of which the symbolic figures of cherubim in Solomon's temple were made. Yet they are rendered 'olive tree'and 'olive wood' in both English Versions. That this is an error is manifest from the remaining reference, where we read in the Book of Nehemiah (viii. 15) that the returned Jews fetched 'olive' branches and 'pine' branches — 'pine' being a mistranslation of עֵץ שֶׁמֶן ets shemen, in deference to the Septuagint, which has 'cypress.'

All these allusions appear to point to the OLEASTER (Eleagnus angustifolius), sometimes erroneously termed the c wild olive.' (So the R. V. renders Neh. viii. 15.) It has no botanical affinity with the latter, but it yields an inferior kind of oil, used as a medicament, though unfit for food. The oleaster is a small tree common in all parts of Palestine except the Jordan valley. The wood is hard and fine-grained, and hence would have been suited for the carving of images. The leaves are small and narrow, and the flowers inconspicuous; yet the oleaster is a graceful shrub. An allied species (E. hortensis) is cultivated in this country for its elegance of form as well as for the fragrance of its blossoms.

Poplar (Heb. לִבְנֶה lihneh).

'And Jacob took him rods of green (R. V. 'fresh') poplar? — Gen. xxx. 37.

The word translated 'poplar' in the above passage, and in Hosea iv. 13, where the prophet is rebuking idolaters who 'burn incense upon the hills under oaks and poplars! is derived from a root signifying 'to be white,' the same from which Lebanon ('the white mountain') derived its name.

The WHITE POPULAR (Populus alba), familiar in our own country and common in Palestine and the South of Europe, may at least be regarded as uniting the conditions of these passages. It is a tree of the water-side, and yet grows high up on the hills; and the whiteness of the back of the leaves imparts a striking paleness of hue which led the Greek botanists to call it λεύκη or 'white.' The groves of white poplar were regarded as sacred to Hercules²⁰).

This species is planted in Damascus for its shade, and it is probable that Jacob would have met with it in Padan-aram.

The wood is soft and spongy, but is utilized by modern artificers for bowls, plates, &c. We have, however, no information as to its use by the Hebrews.

Shittah Tree, Shittim Wood (Heb. שִׁטָּה shittah).

'They shall make an ark of shittim wood.' — Exod. xxv. 10.

'I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree (R. V. 'the acacia').' — Isaiah xli. 19.

The Old Testament references to the kind of timber called 'shittim wood 'are confined to the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, from which we learn that it was the chief material employed in the construction of the framework and furniture of the Tabernacle. The word also appears as the proper name of a district or grassy plain (Abel) north-east of the Dead Sea (Numb, xxv. 1; xxxiii. 49; Josh. ii. 1; Joel iii. 18).

Some tree is therefore denoted which grew in the Desert and in the Ghor, and was large enough to furnish boards of considerable size, and, we may infer, of remarkable durability. One would also judge from the complete (or almost complete) absence of later references that the tree was not a native of Palestine generally.

These requirements are fully met by the Oriental ACACIAS of Sinai and the southern part of the Jordan valley. Two species in particular are of importance for size and value, A. nilotica and A. seyal. The former is an Egyptian tree locally called sunt²¹, the latter is called seyal, and yields the gum-arabic of commerce. This tree, the larger of the two, has a rugged and thorny stem, and bears yellow blossoms amidst its feathery foliage; the fruit is not unlike a lupin. It has straggled northward up the Jordan valley, but its chief home is in the wadys or ravines further south, and in the 'waste howling wilderness'of Sinai. The wood is hard and durable, and admirably adapted for cabinet - work. Mummy coffins of sycamore were clamped with acacia by the Egyptians.

It would be the extreme of scepticism to deny that one at least of the Desert acacias supplied in the wilderness the timber of the sacred tent. There they still flourish; and gnarled specimens of great age still stud the moist meadows beside the Jordan, where, under the shadow of acacia groves, the 'Israelitish tribes 'encamped at the end of their wanderings.

But, satisfactorily as the acacia answers to the shittim wood of Scripture, the same cannot be said of it with reference to the prophetic promise in Isaiah xli. 19, already dwelt upon under previous headings. It is there predicted that the cedar, the myrtle, and the oleaster, together with the shittah tree, should be planted in the wilderness. The general meaning is obvious enough — that the trees of rich and fertile soils should be made to grow in the dry and sterile waste. But with what force could this be affirmed of a tree which is one of the commonest objects in the wilderness? The force of the figure is weakened by its introduction into the picture. Possibly it was from a sense of this incongruity that the Septuagint reads 'box 'in this clause instead of the following one. Grammatically 'shittah' and 'shittim' appear identical, but the context of the passage just quoted seems imperatively to demand a tree which, like the others here enumerated, is unknown in the Desert. It is safest, perhaps, to leave the name untranslated.

Thyine Wood (Gk. ξύλον θῦἳνον).

'Merchandise of gold, and silver. . . and all thyine wood.' — Rev. xviii. 12.

In one of the closing chapters of the Apocalypse it is prophesied that amongst the judgments destined to fall on the mystical Babylon, the merchants of the earth shall lament for the loss of their trade in the precious metals and 'thyine wood,' a literal translation of the Greek ξύλον θῦἳνον. The reference seems to be to a wood of the most beautiful and costly nature, known to the Romans under the name of citrus, though bearing no relation to the citron family. It was yielded by a tree growing in the north of Africa, and known to botanists as Callitris quadrivalvis²² — a coniferous tree closely allied to the better-known arbor vitæ. The wood was in request for furniture, especially tables, from its colour and fragrance; and the most fabulous prices are recorded as having been given for such articles. Horace proposes to use the wood for beams in a temple to Venus²³; Vitruvius says that a 'citron table 'was worth more than its weight in gold; and both Homer and Pliny speak of the use of thyine wood for sacrifices to the gods. The name is probably from 6veivi to sacrifice. Some years since, specimens of cabinet-work made from the Callitris were exhibited in Paris, and attracted much attention. A plank of the same material is said to be in the possession of the Royal Horticultural Society, and samples of the wood are preserved in the museum at Kew. The Turks regard the wood as indestructible, and employ it in their sacred edifices. It is now obtained from the province of Algeria.

Willow (Heb. עֶרֶב ereb, עַפְצָפָה tsaphtsaphah).

'They shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses.' — Isaiah xliv. 4.

Several species of this well-known tree occur in Palestine, abounding beside the rivers and winter torrents of the country, conspicuously so on the banks of the Jordan and its eastern tributaries, the Anion and Callirhoe. Lamartine speaks of 'forests of willows of every species' fringing the Jordan, but he probably includes poplars and other moisture-loving plants. WILLOWS flourish in the glens bordering the Dead Sea, where the rocks are tapestried by the equally moisture-loving maidenhair fern.

Though not so abundant as in our own humid climate and soil, in which the multiplicity of its forms makes the genus Salix a puzzle to botanists, the willow must have been a noticeable plant in Bible days. It first appears as one of the trees from which boughs were to be fetched for the construction of booths at the annual Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. xxiii. 40). Here and in other passages the phrase 'willows of the brook 'occurs. In the Book of Job (ch. xl. 22) the hippopotamus is described as couching under 'the willows of the brook.' In the magnificent description given by the prophet Isaiah (ch. xv) the defeated Moabites are depicted as carrying away their possessions to 'the brook of the willows 'for refuge: and in the promise quoted at the head of this section, the godly seed of Jacob are to 'spring up 5 with the vigorous life of the richly-nourished willows beside the 1 overflowing streams.'

Of the multitudinous uses to which the willows, sallows, and osiers, in their various kinds, have been or are applied in our own islands, the history of the Hebrew nation affords no trace, except in connexion with the autumnal festival; we may, however, safely infer that the pliability of some species in particular may have led to their employment for wicker-work — a property recognized by nations so far apart as our Celtic forefathers and the peasantry of ancient Rome.

The passage usually recalled when 'willows 'are mentioned is that in Psalm cxxxvii. 2, so often paraphrased in mournful verse. It has been generally believed that the weeping willow, named Salix Babylonica by Linnaeus, was the veritable plant on which the captive Israelites are pathetically said to have 'hung their harps 'in the land of their exile. It has also been stated that this species, now so common in England, was originally introduced by Lady Suffolk, the contemporary of Alexander Pope. The poet, it is said, was present at the uncovering of the consignment, and observing some signs of life in the branches, proposed to plant them in his garden at Twickenham. There the weeping willow rooted and grew, and became the parent of a numerous race. It seems, however, that the particular willow planted by Pope, and, until a comparatively recent period, to be seen in the grounds which once he owned, was not the first of its kind introduced into this country. It is also doubtful whether S. Babylonica is a native of the land whose name it bears; but in any case the poplars and willows of the Euphrates would remind the exiled Hebrews of similar plants beside their native streams, and would be called by the same general name.

The second word (tsaphtsaphah), used in the Old Testament for the willow, occurs but once, in Ezekiel's parable of the planted vine, which was set beside many waters 'as a willow-tree' (ch. xvii. 5). There can be little doubt of the identification; as, beside agreeing with the context, the term almost coincides with safsaf, the modern Arabic name for willow.

1) The following genera, remarkable for spinous growths, are conspicuously represented in Palestine — Astragalus, Fagonia, Ononis, Poierium, Zizyphus, with many others. (See under BRAMBLE and THISTLE in Chapter V.)

2) Nat. Hist. lib. xiii. c. 11.

3) Eclog. vii. 65; Georg. iv. 112, 141.

4) Georg. lib. ii. 437.

5) Met. lib. x. 97.

6) See Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, pp. 105, in, &c, and Babylonian Life and History, pp. 31, 33.

7) See under SYCOMORE-FIG in the next chapter.

8) Horace, A. P. 331-2.

9) Georg. ii. 443; iii. 414; Æneid, vii. 13. 178.

10) Georg. lib. ii. 116.

11) Georg. lib. ii. 442, 443.

12) Carm. lib. ii. od. 14.

13) Compare also נֹּּפֶר kopher, 'pitch,' in Gen. vi. 14.

14) The Report of the Palestine Exploration Fund Survey enumerates 358 species.

15) Georg. ii. 12, 434, 435.

16) Homer (Od. lib. vii. 106) compares the rapid ringers of the maids of Alkinons when plying their shuttles to the leaves of the tall poplar.

17) Teil is an old name for the lime tree (Tilia).

18) According to Boissier, the large terebinth of the Holy Land is an allied species, P. palæstina.'

19) The apparent exceptions are Isaiah i. 29; lxi. 3; Ezek. xxxi. 14; in which the word is  (elim, 'strong ones'); it is doubtful, however, if specific trees are intended, at least in the two latter passages.

20) Virgil, Ecl. vii. 61.

21) Canon Tristram suggests, with fair probability, that the 'burning bush' (Heb. סְנֶה seneh) may have been the sunt (A. nilotica).

22) The older botanical name was Thuja articulata.

23) Horace, Carm. lib. iv. od. 1.