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Plants of the Bible
Date palm
Hebrew tamar · Greek phoinix · Phoenix dactylifera
The palm tree of the Bible is the date palm. It has a tall trunk without branches — up to about 24 meters — topped by a crown of feathery leaves two to three meters long. It needs heat and water, so it grew in oases such as Elim with its seventy palms (Exodus 15:27) and around Jericho, “the City of Palms”. Its fruit hangs in huge clusters, and one tree can give about 90 kilograms of dates a year, eaten fresh or pressed into cakes (2 Samuel 6:19). Some of the “honey” of the Bible may be date syrup.
Nothing of the tree was wasted: the leaves covered roofs and were woven into mats and baskets, the trunk gave timber and the fibers rope. Palms were carved on the walls of Solomon’s temple, and palm branches were carried at times of rejoicing — at the Feast of Tabernacles and when the crowd met Jesus at Jerusalem (John 12:13). In 2005 a date seed about 2,000 years old, found at Masada, was sprouted and grew into a tree.
Key verses
Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the waters.the Negev, and the region from the Valley of Jericho (the City of Palms) all the way to Zoar.And she would sit under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, where the Israelites would go up to her for judgment.Then he distributed to every man and woman among the multitude of Israel a loaf of bread, a date cake, and a raisin cake. And all the people departed, each for his own home.Then he carved the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer sanctuaries, with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.They took palm branches and went out to meet Him, shouting: “Hosanna!” “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the King of Israel!”Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Plants: Palm (Phoenix dactylifera); Date, Date Palm; Honey
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
