Meaning of PALM TREE

(Heb. "tamar", "timmorah", "tomer"; Gr. "phoinix").
It is a large tree (Song 7:7, 8); straight and tall, it serves as a simile for the growth of the righteous (Ps. 92:13); He was numbered among the fruit trees (Joel 1:12).

It inspired the decorative motifs of Solomon's Temple and other sanctuaries (1 Kings 6:29, 32, 35; Herodotus 2:169).

Palm trees symbolized victory and peace (1 Mac. 13:51; 2 Mac. 10:7; John 12:13; Rev. 7:9).
The expression "palm branches" found in passages such as Lev. 23:40; Neh. 8:15; Jn. 12:13 does not correspond to current botanical language.

There are few palm trees that have branches in the sense that the term is understood in botany, and the date palm of which certain species are found in Palestine does not have them. This term then refers to the palms, which resemble large feathers, and which have a length of 1.20 to 1.80 m.

Palm trees abounded in the Nile Valley; there was in Elim, in the wilderness, near the Red Sea (Ex. 15:27); in Edom (Virgil, Georgics 3:12). The palm tree thrived in various places in Judea, in En-gedi, on the coasts of the Sea of Galilee, in the Jordan Valley, and especially in Jericho, "the city of palm trees" (Deut. 34:3; Judges 1 :16; 2 Chr. 28:15).

According to Strabo, Josephus, etc., the palm forest of Jericho was 20 km long and, according to Pliny, its dates were the best, thanks to the saline terrain (cf. Gen. 14:7, where it appears the palm tree in the geographical name of Hazezon-tamar; Deut. 34:3; Ant. 9:1, 2; Wars 1:6, 6; 3:10, 8); the names of Sansana (southern Judah, Jos. 15:31) and Kiriath-sana (Jos. 15:49) evoke palm trees.

They were also on Mount Ephraim, near Bethel (Judges 4:5; 20:33); near Jerusalem (Neh. 8:15; Jn. 12:13); east of Damascus, in the city that was successively called Tadmor and Palmyra (see TADMOR). Palm trees also grew along the lower course of the Tigris and Euphrates (Herodotus 1:193).

The Greeks and Romans considered the palm tree the typical tree of Palestine and neighboring countries. Coins minted in Rome to commemorate the taking of Jerusalem in 70 AD. They represented Judea under the image of a desolate woman sitting under a date palm tree.

This tree, so widespread in Palestine in the past, disappeared from almost all of it, with the exception of the maritime strip of Philistia and the areas of Beirut; but now large areas have been replanted.

The palm tree that is constantly found in the Scriptures is almost always the "Phoenix dactylifera", a date palm that rises between 14 and 20 m. Tall. Its stipe (long, unbranched stem), straight and of constant thickness, bears the marks of fallen palms, and is crowned by a crown of large evergreen palms.

It has a life of 100 to 200 years; With it you can make roofs, walls, palisades, mats, baskets. The tender part of the spathe is crossed to extract the juice, which gives sugar by evaporation. Through fermentation or distillation the juice is transformed into a strong drink, called arrack (Wars 4:8, 3; Herodotus 1:193).

Its fruit, dates, is very abundant, and appreciated for its great nutritional value. The Persians mention 360 different uses of the date palm. The bones of the dates serve as food for the camels.

The Israelites may have known another species of date tree, the Palmyra, which grows in Tadmor, in the desert. It is the "Borassus flabelliformis", whose palm is fan-shaped.