The Hebrew Scriptures, written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and translated into Greek in the 2nd century BC, and then constantly translated into all the languages of the world, mention fruits that have long been of historic interest despite the many translation problems.
Seeds and fruits remains are exciting discoveries for archaeologists because they provide clues about ancient agriculture and diets.
The Scripture mentions 6 types of tree fruit, many of which appear dozen of times: Grape, Olive, Fig, Pomegranate, Date, Apple. This 6 fruits are used in 8 different ways.
- First, many people are named after fruit, e.g., Tamar in Genesis 36, which means 'Date,' 'Tappuah in 1 Chronicles 2:43, which means 'Apple', and 'Rimmon' in 2 Samuel 4:2, which means 'Pomegranate.'
- Second, fruit are the namesake for a number of 'Cities' and 'Towns,' e.g., 'Anab' in Joshua 11:21, which means 'Grape,' 'Rimmon', which means 'Pomegranate' in Joshua 15:32, and 'Tappuah' which means 'Apple' in Joshua 12:17. Once the remaining 'Olives' are for the poor.
- Third, images of fruit are used as decorations, e.g., the blue, purple, and crimson 'Pomegranates' on Aaron's priestly garments (Exodus 28:33-34) and the engraved 'Date' palm trees in Solomons Temple (1 Kings 6:29).
- Fourth, fruits are the subjects of laws, e.g., the law in Numbers 6:3 that a Nazirite may not eat or drink 'Grape' products or the law in Deuteronomy 24:20 that one may only beat an 'Olive' tree.
- Fifth, fruits are used in a number of metaphors and similes such as, "Your breath is like the fragrance of the apples" in Song of Songs 7:9 and "I found Israel as grapes in the wilderness" in Hosea 9:10.
- Sixth, fruits appear in curses and blessings such as "Your olives shall drop off" in Deuteronomy 28:40 and "Israel is a land of wheat and burley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey" in Deuteronomy 8:8.
- Seventh, fruits are used pedagogically in Proverbs such as "He who tends to a fig tree will enjoy its fruit" in Proverbs 27:18 and "Parents eat sour grapes and their children's teeth are blunted" in Ezekiel 18:2.
- Eight, fruits appear as objects in narratives, such as in Numbers 13:23, where the spies of Moses examine the 'Grapes', 'Pomegranates', and 'Figs' of the land, and in Genesis 3, where the first woman eats the forbidden fruit and is cast from Eden.
Fruit was much more than a fruit for the ancient Israelites. It was a symbol that appeared prominently in the culture's names, laws, proverbs, and traditions.
GRAPES (Vitis orientalis, Vitis vinifera) both wild and cultivated are mentioned in the Hebrew bible. The wild grapes of the Old World (Vitis sylvestris) are indigenous to the South Caspian belt, Turkey, and the Balkans, and were widely distributed in the Northern Mediterranean area including the Black and Caspian Seas. Toward 5000 BC, the domestic grape (V. Vinifera), migrated from Anatolia to Syria and thence to the Holy Land. Signs of domestication are found in Mesopotamia, the Holy Land, Syria, Egypt, and the Aegean. By the 2nd millennium BC, there is evidence of vessels for wine storage as well as raisins. Grapes are easily propagated vegetatively, permitting extensive plantings of unique clones. The great genetic change in domestication was the switch from dioecism to hermaphroditism, increase in berry size and sugar content, and selection of various skin colors, and later, selection for seedless, a key factor for table grapes and raisins. The cultivation involves extensive vine training and pruning, and in no other fruit crops are these practices more important. The Scripture is rich in allusions to viticultural practices and wine making.
Isaiah 5:1-7,10 "Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved toughing his vineyard. My well beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest wine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes. And now.. judge.. betwixt me and my vineyard.
What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?"
Ezekiel 17:5-7 "He took also of the seed of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree. And it grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature, whose branches turned toward him, and the roots thereof were under him: so it became a vine, and brought forth branches and shot forth sprigs."
John 15: 1-6 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit .. As the branch cannot bear fruit itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches: He that abides in Me and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit for without Me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
OLIVE is a slow-growing, long-lived evergreen tree uniquely adapted to and a defining feature of the Mediterranean type of climate. Archaeological evidence of the olive dates to 10,000 BC. The olive was not used by the Babylonians and Assyrians, whose sources of oil were sesame and walnut, but olive was long known in Syria and the Holy Land and was introduced to Egypt between 3000 and 1600 BC. By the time of Ramses II (1197-1165BC) olive oil was used for illumination and as a skin emollient for cracks and sunburn. The burning oil of olive gives a very luminous flame. The oil was also used in cooking and as a dressing, and is still the most common culinary oil in the Mediterranean area. Somehow humans learned that the small, bitter fruits, almost inedible and somewhat poisonous as a result of the phenolic glucoside eleuropein, could be made edible by soaking and fermentation.
Olive along with grape, is the most mentioned fruit in the Scripture. The olive tree became a symbol of beauty, freshness, fertility, wealth, fame and peace. Its importance is reflected in its use for religious purposes such as consecration of ceremonies. The word 'Messiah' literally means 'the anointed One.'
Exodus 27:20 "And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always."
Judges 9:8-9 "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, 'Reign you over us.' But the olive tree said unto them, 'Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor gods and humans. Should I stop making my oil just to go and sway over the other trees?'
Then the trees said to the fig tree, 'Come and be our king.' But the fig tree answered, 'Should I stop making my good sweet fruit just to go and sway over the other trees?' Then the trees said to the vine, 'Come and be our king.' But the vine answered, 'My wine makes men and kings happy. Should I stop making my wine just to go and sway over the trees?' Finally all the trees said to the thorn bush, 'Come and be our king.' But the thorn bush said to the trees, 'If you want to make me king over you, come and find shelter in my shade. But if you do not want to do this, let fire come out of the thorn bush. Let the fire burn even the cedar trees of Lebanon.'
Romans 11:17, 24 "And if some of the branches be broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were graffed in among them, and with them partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree.. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were graffed contrary to nature in a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
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