Palm Tree

VIEW:22 DATA:01-04-2020

PALM TREE (tâmâr).—The date palm (Phœnix dactylifera) is a tree essential to existence in the deserts of Arabia, and was therefore held sacred among the Semites from the earliest historic times. It flourishes in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the oases of Arabia (Exo_15:27, Num_33:9), but its cultivation has for long been much neglected in Palestine. It is still found in considerable numbers in the Maritime Plain, e.g. at the Bay of ‘Akka and at Gaza; and small scattered groups occur all over the land in the neighbourhood of springs. In the valleys east of the Dead Sea, many sterile, dwarfed palms occur. Both in the OT (Deu_34:3, Jdg_1:16; Jdg_3:13, 2Ch_28:15) and in Josephus (BJ IV. viii. 2–3), Jericho is famous for its vast groves of palms; to-day there are but few, and these quite modern trees. Not only are dates a staple diet in Arabia and an important article of export, but the plaited leaves furnish mats and baskets, the bark is made into ropes, and the seeds are ground up for cattle. From the dates is made a kind of syrup, date-honey or dibs, a valuable substitute for sugar. The method of fertilization of the female (pistillate) flowers by the pollen from the male (staminate) flowers was known in very ancient times, and nature was then, as now, assisted by shaking out the pollen over the female flowers. The palm tree is referred to (Psa_92:12) as a sign of prosperity and (Son_7:7-8) of beauty. Figures of palm trees were used to ornament the Temple (1Ki_6:1-38); at a later period they occur on Jewish coins and in the sculpture of the ancient Jewish synagogues, notably in the recently excavated synagogue at Tell Hûm (Capernaum). The sacredness of this tree thus persisted from the early Semite to late Jewish times. Palm branches were used at the rejoicings of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev_23:40, Neh_8:15), as they are among the modern Jews, who daily, during this feast, wave branches of palms in their synagogues. In 1Ma_13:51 we read of the bearing of palm branches as the sign of triumphant rejoicing—an idea also implied in their use in Joh_12:13 and Rev_7:9. To-day these branches are used by the Moslems especially at funeral processions, and to decorate graves.
E. W. G. Masterman.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

Palm Tree. (Hebrew, tamar). Under this generic term, many species are botanically included; but we have here only to do with the date palm, the Phoenix dactylifera of Linnaeus. While this tree was abundant generally in the Levant, it was regarded, by the ancients, as peculiarly characteristic of Palestine and the neighboring regions, though now it is rare.
("The palm tree frequently attains a height of eighty feet, but more commonly forty to fifty feet. It begins to bear fruit, after it has been planted six or eight years, and continues to be productive for a century. Its trunk is straight, tall and unbroken, terminating in a crown of emerald-green plumes, like a diadem of gigantic ostrich-feathers; these leaves are frequently twenty feet in length, droop slightly at the ends, and whisper musically in the breeze.
The palm is, in truth, a beautiful and most useful tree. Its fruit is the daily food of millions; its sap furnishes an agreeable wine; the fibres of the base of its leaves are woven into ropes and rigging; its tall stem supplies a valuable timber; its leaves are manufactured into brushes, mats, bags, couches and baskets. This one tree supplies almost all the wants of the Arab or Egyptian." — Bible Plants).
Many places are mentioned in the Bible as having connection with palm trees; Elim, where grew three score and ten palm trees, Exo_15:27, and Elath. Deu_2:8. Jericho was the city of "palm trees", Deu_31:3, Hazezon-tamar, "the felling of the palm tree", is clear in its derivation. There is also Tamar, "the palm". Eze_47:19. Bethany means the "house of dates". The word Phoenicia, which occurs twice in the New Testament — Act_11:19; Act_15:3 — is in all probability derived from the Greek word for a palm.
The striking appearance of the tree, its uprightness and beauty, would naturally suggest the giving of its name, occasionally, to women. Gen_38:6; 2Sa_13:1; 2Sa_14:27. There is, in the Psalms, Psa_92:12, the familiar comparison, "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree," which suggests a world of illustration, whether respect be had to the orderly and regular aspect of the tree, its fruitfulness, the perpetual greenness of its foliage, or the height at which the foliage grows, as far as possible, from earth, and as near as possible, to heaven.
Perhaps no point is more worthy of mention, we wish to pursue the comparison, than the elasticity of the fibre of the palm, and its determined growth upward, even when loaded with weights. The passage in Rev_7:9, where the glorified of all nations are described as "clothed with white robes and palms in their hands," might seem to us a purely classical image; but palm branches were used, by the Jews, in token of victory and peace.
(To these points of comparison may be added, its principle of growth: it is an endogen, and grows from within; its usefulness; the Syrians enumerating 360 different uses to which it may be put; and the statement that it bears its best fruit in old age. — Editor). It is curious that this tree, once so abundant in Judea, is now comparatively rare, except in the Philistine plain, and in the old Phoenicia about Beyrout.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

תמר , Exo_15:27, &c. This tree, sometimes called the date tree, grows plentifully in the east. It rises to a great height. The stalks are generally full of rugged knots, which are the vestiges of the decayed leaves; for the trunk of this tree is not solid, like other trees, but its centre is filled with pith, round which is a tough bark full of strong fibres when young, which, as the tree grows old, hardens and becomes ligneous. To this bark the leaves are closely joined, which in the centre rise erect; but, after they are advanced above the vagina which surrounds them, they expand very wide on every side the stem; and, as the older leaves decay, the stalk advances in height. The leaves, when the tree has grown to a size for bearing fruit, are six or eight feet long, are very broad when spread out, and are used for covering the tops of houses, &c. The fruit, which is called date, grows below the leaves in clusters, and is of a sweet and agreeable taste. The learned Kaempfer, as a botanist, an antiquary, and a traveller, has exhausted the whole subject of palm trees. “The diligent natives,” says Mr. Gibbon, “celebrated, either in verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were skilfully applied.” “The extensive importance of the date tree,” says Dr. E. D. Clarke, “is one of the most curious subjects to which a traveller can direct his attention. A considerable part of the inhabitants of Egypt, of Arabia, and Persia, subsist almost entirely upon its fruit. They boast also of its medicinal virtues. Their camels feed upon the date stone. From the leaves they make couches, baskets, bags, mats, and brushes; from the branches, cages for their poultry, and fences for their gardens; from the fibres of the boughs, thread, ropes, and rigging; from the sap is prepared a spirituous liquor; and the body of the tree furnishes fuel.
It is even said that from one variety of the palm tree, the phoenix farinifera, meal has been extracted, which is found among the fibres of the trunk, and has been used for food.”
In the temple of Solomon were pilasters made in the form of palm trees, 1Ki_6:29. It was under a tree of this kind that Deborah dwelt between Ramah and Bethel, Jdg_4:5. To the fair, flourishing, and fruitful condition of this tree, the psalmist very aptly compares the votary of virtue, Psa_92:12-14 :—
The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. Those that are planted in the house of Jehovah, In the courts of our God, shall flourish;
In old age they shall still put forth buds, They shall be full of sap and vigorous.
The palm tree is crowned at its top with a large tuft of spiring leaves about four feet long, which never fall off, but always continue in the same flourishing verdure. The tree, as Dr. Shaw was informed, is in its greatest vigour about thirty years after it is planted, and continues in full vigour seventy years longer; bearing all this while, every year, about three or four hundred pounds' weight of dates. The trunk of the tree is remarkably straight and lofty. Jeremiah, speaking of the idols that were carried in procession, says they were upright as the palm tree, Jer_10:5. And for erect stature and slenderness of form, the spouse, in Son_7:7, is compared to this tree:—
How framed, O my love, for delights! Lo, thy stature is like a palm tree, And thy bosom like clusters of dates.
On this passage Mr. Good observes, that “the very word tamar, here used for the palm tree, and whose radical meaning is ‘straight,' or ‘upright,' (whence it was afterward applied to pillars or columns, as well as to the palm,) was also a general name among the ladies of Palestine, and unquestionably adopted in honour of the stature they had already acquired, or gave a fair promise of attaining.”
A branch of palm was a signal of victory, and was carried before conquerors in the triumphs. To this, allusion is made, Rev_7:9 : and for this purpose were they borne before Christ in his way to Jerusalem, Joh_12:13. From the inspissated sap of the tree, a kind of honey, or dispse, as it is called, is produced, little inferior to that of bees. The same juice, after fermentation, makes a sort of wine much used in the east. It is once mentioned as wine, Num_28:7; Exo_29:40; and by it is intended the strong drink, Isa_5:11; Isa_24:9. Theodoret and Chrysostom, on these places, both Syrians, and unexceptionable witnesses in what belongs to their own country, confirm this declaration. “This liquor,” says Dr. Shaw, “which has a more luscious sweetness than honey, is of the consistence of a thin syrup, but quickly grows tart and ropy, acquiring an intoxicating quality, and giving by distillation an agreeable spirit, or araky, according to the general name of these people for all hot liquors, extracted by the alembic.” Its Hebrew name is שכר , the σικερα of the Greeks; and from its sweetness, probably, the saccharum of the Romans. Jerom informs us that in Hebrew “any inebriating liquor is called sicera, whether made of grain, the juice of apples, honey, dates, or any other fruit.”
This tree was formerly of great value and esteem among the Israelites, and so very much cultivated in Judea, that, in after times, it became the emblem of that country, as may be seen in a medal of the Emperor Vespasian upon the conquest of Judea. It represents a captive woman sitting under a palm tree, with this inscription, “Judea capta;” [Judea captivated;] and upon a Greek coin, likewise, of his son Titus, struck upon the like occasion, we see a shield suspended upon a palm tree, with a Victory writing upon it.
Pliny also calls Judea palmis inclyta, “renowned for palms.” Jericho, in particular, was called “the city of palms,” Deu_34:3; 2Ch_28:15; because, as Josephus, Strabo, and Pliny have remarked, it anciently abounded in palm trees. And so Dr. Shaw remarks, that, though these trees are not now either plentiful or fruitful in other parts of the holy land, yet there are several of them at Jericho, where there is the conveniency they require of being often watered; where, likewise, the climate is warm, and the soil sandy, such as they thrive and delight in. Tamar, a city built in the desert by Solomon, 1Ki_9:18; Eze_47:19; Eze_48:28, was probably so named from the palm trees growing about it; as it was afterward by the Romans called Palmyra, or rather Palmira, on the same account, from palma, “a palm tree.”
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

palm?trē (תּמר, tāmār, same as the Aramaic and Ethiopic, but in Arabic = ?date?; φοίνιξ, phoı́nix (Exo_15:27; Lev_23:40; Num_33:9; Deu_34:3; Jdg_1:16; Jdg_3:13; 2Ch_28:15; Neh_8:15; Psa_92:12; Son_7:7 f; Joe_1:12); תּמר, tōmer, Deborah ?dwelt under the palm-tree? (Jdg_4:5); ?They are like a palm-tree (margin ?pillar?), of turned work? (Jer_10:5); תּמרה, tı̄mōrāh (only in the plural), the palm tree as an architectural feature (1Ki_6:29, 1Ki_6:32, 1Ki_6:35; 1Ki_7:36; 2Ch_3:5; Eze_40:16); Greek only Ecclesiasticus 50:12; Joh_12:13; Rev_7:9):

1. Palm Trees:
The palm, Phoenix dactylifera (Natural Order Palmeae), Arabic nakhl, is a tree which from the earliest times has been associated with the Semitic peoples. In Arabia the very existence of man depends largely upon its presence, and many authorities consider this to have been its original habitat. It is only natural that such a tree should have been sacred both there and in Assyria in the earliest ages. In Palestine the palm leaf appears as an ornament upon pottery as far back as 1800 BC (compare PEF, Gezer Mere., II, 172). In Egypt the tall palm stem forms a constant feature in early architecture, and among the Hebrews it was extensively used as a decoration of the temple (1Ki_6:29, 1Ki_6:32, 1Ki_6:35; 1Ki_7:36; 2Ch_3:5). It is a symbol of beauty (Son_7:7) and of the righteous man:
?The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree:
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of Yahweh;
They shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age;
They shall be full of sap and green? (Psa_92:12-14).
The palm tree or branch is used extensively on Jewish coinage and most noticeably appears as a symbol of the land upon the celebrated Judea Capta coins of Vespasian. A couple of centuries or so later it forms a prominent architectural feature in the ornamentation of the Galilean synagogues, e.g. at Tell Ḥûm (Capernaum). The method of artificial fertilization of the pistillate (female) flowers by means of the staminate (male) flowers appears to have been known in the earliest historic times. Winged figures are depicted on some of the early Assyrian sculptures shaking a bunch of the male flowers over the female for the same purpose as the people of modern Gaza ascend the tall trunks of the fruit-bearing palms and tie among the female flowers a bunch of the pollen-bearing male flowers.

2. Their Ancient Abundance in Palestine:
In Palestine today the palm is much neglected; there are few groves except along the coast, e.g. at the bay of Akka, Jaffa and Gaza; solitary palms occur all over the land in the courtyards of mosques (compare Psa_92:13) and houses even in the mountains. Once palms flourished upon the Mount of Olives (Neh_8:15), and Jericho was long known as the ?city of palm-trees? (Deu_34:3; Jdg_1:16; Jdg_3:13; 2Ch_28:15; Josephus BJ, IV, viii, 2-3), but today the only palms are scarce and small; under its name Hazazon-tamar (2Ch_20:2), En-gedi would appear to have been as much a place of palms in ancient days as we know it was in later history. A city, too, called Tamar (?date palm?) appears to have been somewhere near the southwestern corner of the Dead Sea (Eze_47:19; Eze_48:28). Today the numerous salt-encrusted stumps of wild palm trees washed up all along the shores of the Dead Sea witness to the existence of these trees within recent times in some of the deep valleys around.

3. Palm Branches:
Branches of palms have been symbolically associated with several different ideas. A palm branch is used in Isa_9:14; Isa_19:15 to signify he ?head,? the highest of the people, as contrasted with the rush, the ?tail,? or humblest of the people. Palm branches appear from early times to have been associated with rejoicing. On the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles the Hebrews were commanded to take branches of palms, with other trees, and rejoice before God (Lev_23:40; compare Neh_8:15; 2 Macc 10:7). The palm branch still forms the chief feature of the lūlābh carried daily by every pious Jew to the synagogue, during the feast. Later it was connected with the idea of triumph and victory. Simon Maccabeus entered the Akra at Jerusalem after its capture, ?with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees, and with harps, and cymbals, and with viols, and hymns, and songs: because there was destroyed a great enemy out of Israel? (1 Macc 13:51 the King James Version; compare 2 Macc 10:7). The same idea comes out in the use of palm branches by the multitudes who escorted Jesus to Jerusalem (Joh_12:13) and also in the vision of the ?great multitude, which no man could number ... standing before the ... Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands? (Rev_7:9). Today palms are carried in every Moslem funeral procession and are laid on the new-made grave.
See also TAMAR as a proper name.


International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

FACEBOOK

Participe de nossa rede facebook.com/osreformadoresdasaude

Novidades, e respostas das perguntas de nossos colaboradores