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Plants of the Bible
Fig tree
Hebrew te’enah · Greek sykē · about 60 mentions
The fig was one of the main foods of the Bible lands, and fig leaves are the first plant named in the Bible (Genesis 3:7). The tree needs little care and can give two or three crops a year. Its small fruit buds appear in early spring, before the leaves, so a tree in full leaf with nothing on it was a disappointment (Matthew 21:19). The first ripe figs of the season were a treat that people ate on the spot (Isaiah 28:4).
Figs were eaten fresh or pressed into cakes that kept for journeys: Abigail sent David two hundred cakes of figs. A poultice of figs was laid on King Hezekiah’s boil. A related tree, the sycamore-fig, gave cheaper fruit for the poor; the prophet Amos tended these trees. To sit “under his own vine and his own fig tree” was the Bible’s picture of a peaceful life at home (1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4).
Key verses
And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves.Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeysThroughout the days of Solomon, Judah and Israel dwelt securely from Dan to Beersheba, each man under his own vine and his own fig tree.Then Isaiah said, “Prepare a poultice of figs.” So they brought it and applied it to the boil, and Hezekiah recovered.“I was not a prophet,” Amos replied, “nor was I the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore-fig trees.Seeing a fig tree by the road, He went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. “May you never bear fruit again!” He said. And immediately the tree withered.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: Fig, Fig Tree (Ficus carica); Food and Food Preparation: Fruits, Nuts, and Wine
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.
