pods

The Greek in Luke 15:16 that is translated as “pods” in English is translated in Elhomwe as makattha, a term given to all kind of peelings, which are given to pigs. (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

In the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) with Johannisbrotbaum-Schoten or “carob pods,” the kind of pods that likely would have been fed to pigs in Palestine.

The Carob Ceratonia siliqua is a very common tree found throughout the Mediterranean area and also in Arabia, Somalia, and Oman. It is native to Israel, where it was called charuv, according to Jewish religious writings of the first few centuries after Christ. Arabs call it kharrub.

In Bible times, as now, carob trees were found in the coastal plain and in the foothills (Shephelah) and on the eastern slopes of Galilee and Samaria. The carob seed pods are filled with a sweet moist pulp that was popular with poor people. The pods were also used to feed animals. That is probably the basis for Jesus’ statement that the prodigal boy in the parable looked hungrily at the carob keration (“pods”) that he had to feed to the pigs (Luke 15:16).

The carob tree is an evergreen with dark green leaves and many low leafy branches that hide a short trunk. The crown of the tree is round and may reach as high as 12 meters (40 feet). As is the case of the acacia, the date palm and the fig, the carob tree is a lonely representative of a large tropical family (in this case the pea sub-family Caesalpinioideae) that found its way into parts of Israel many millennia ago. The trees in this family are legumes, that is, they put nitrogen into the soil by way of little nodules on the roots. As the tree ages, the trunk be-comes twisted. In contrast to many other trees of the Bible lands, this one bears flowers in autumn, and the seed pods form the following summer. The mature pod is dark brown and about 15-25 centimeters (6-10 inches) in length and 2.5-3.5 centimeters (1-1.5 inches) broad.

If indeed the “pods” of Luke 15.16 were carob pods, it would certainly indicate that they were not considered high-class food. The tree is also called “St. John’s bread” on the belief that John the Baptist must have eaten these fruits when he lived in the desert of Judea. It is quite likely that John did eat carob pods. However, the suggestion that the “locusts” in Mark 1:6 were locust bean pods is not correct, since John probably did eat locusts, as some people in the world still do today. Ironically, carob pod pulp, which was once the “food of the poor” has become, in the last few years, an expensive “health food” in England and America! The word “carat” used in weighing diamonds comes from the Greek name of this tree, since the seeds were used as a standard for measurement. They typically weigh about two hundred milligrams.

Since the Greek word for carob does not actually occur in Luke 15:16, and keration could possibly refer to some other sort of pods, we cannot actually name a species here. If translators have a word for the edible seed pods of trees, they should use it. Otherwise they will have to use something like “fruit of wild trees.” In study notes translators may wish to refer to major language terms, for example, French caroube, Spanish algarrobo, Portuguese alfarroba, and Arabic kharrub.

Carob pods, photo by Gloria Suess

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

all kinds of scented wood

The Thyine tree Tetraclinis articulata is also called “thuja” or “thuya,” and, confusingly, “citron” or “citrus” in different parts of the world. Similar to the well-known arborvitae, the thyine is found mainly in the Mediterranean area and across North Africa (Morocco, Algeria). It is a coniferous tree related to cypresses, pines, and cedars. Its identification in the book of Revelation is based on the Greek spelling, thuinos. In some places it is called the sandarac tree on the basis of the clear varnish (sandarac) that is made from the resin. The Romans, who used the wood for cabinet work, called it “citrus” for some strange reason, though apart from the yellow fruit, it bears no resemblance to true citrus trees.

The thyine can reach a height of 9 meters (30 feet). It has scaly leaves like cedars and cypresses, reddish brown bark, and sweet-smelling wood that is resistant to insects.

Tetraclinis articulata, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

plant / gourd / ivy

The Hebrew term for the plant that is translated in a variety of ways in English, including “vine,” “gourd,” or simply “plant” or “bush” has a long history of controversial translations.

Law (2013, p. 170) quotes from one of the letters of Augustine (354-430 AD) who was a strong defender of the Ancient Greek Septuagint translation: “In Oea [ancient city in present-day Tripoli, Libya], a bishop read from Jerome’s translation of Jonah, and because of the strange new rendering he almost lost his congregation. The [Greek] Bible of the church had ‘gourd’ (kolokýnthi / κολοκύνθῃ) in Jonah 4:6, but Jerome had changed it to the Latin word for ‘ivy’ [hedera]. The congregation in attendance fumed upon hearing the new translation and accused it of being ‘Judaized.’ Jews were called in to explain the rendering, and they claimed that Jerome was wrong and the Septuagint was right all along. Whether this actually happened is irrelevant. Augustine has either reported a real event or has created a literary fiction, but either way he provides a window into the struggle of parting with the church’s Bible in favor of Jerome’s new translation.”

This divergence in opinion can be seen up to the present day. Older Catholic versions that are based one the Latin Vulgate (for instance the English Douay-Rheims or the translation by Knox) will use a word for a climbing plant such as “ivy” or “vine,” other translations use a large variety of translations, including the “safe” choice “plant.” In the UBS handbook Plants and Trees in the Bible, Koops (2012, p. 127) says: “The identity of Jonah’s qiqayon plant has been debated since the days of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. [Several scholars] advocate the castor oil plant (Ricinus communis) as the qiqayon. But the King James Version’s ‘gourd’ has a long history, including its use in the Septuagint. The Vulgate translated qiqayon as hedera (‘ivy’) but that rendering has not had further botanical support. In 1955 an in-depth study of the literature going back as far as St. Jerome was made and its author votes hesitantly for the gourd (colocynth). Some scholars even suggest it could be an Assyrian word inserted in the story just to make it sound foreign, or even a made-up word.”

In Newari it is translated as “pumpkin plant” (source: Newari Back Translation).

See also cucumber, melon, and bottle gourd / calabash.

bottle gourd / calabash

The Bottle Gourd or Calabash Lagenaria siceraria was one of the first plants to be domesticated by human beings. It has been used for food, for medicine, and for various utensils and musical instruments. It is indigenous to Africa but was probably introduced into Asia and the Americas about ten thousand years ago, with or without the help of humans. The name of the genus comes from the Latin word lagoena, meaning “flask” (almost certainly the first Roman flasks were dried gourds). The species name is derived from the Latin word for “dry,” suggesting that the fruit is usable in its dried form. Although the people of the Bible lands undoubtedly used the split bottle gourds in their homes as bowls or “dippers,” as we find in Africa and Asia, the only references we have are to the image of the gourd in the artwork carved into the cedar of King Solomon’s palace (1 Kings 6:18) and in the decorating of the giant bronze basin that stood in front of the Temple (1 Kings 7:24).

The bottle gourd is a climbing vine like a cucumber or pumpkin. Its stem is square, ribbed, and hairy, and can grow up to 5 meters (17 feet) long. The leaves are heart-shaped, the size of a human hand, and slightly lobed. The flowers are yellow with five petals, giving way to fruits that may be of many different shapes depending on the variety. Most gourds are globular at one end, with a protrusion that may be elongated, making them very useful, when cut in half, as big spoons in the kitchen.

Gourds or calabashes have been used as containers, or, when split, as dipping devices, for thousands of years. They have also been used for musical instruments. The pulp of most kinds is very bitter and is poisonous in some cases. Some kinds are used in medicine in some countries, for purges, expelling worms, and for chest pains and headache. In southern Africa the leaves are eaten as a vegetable, as are the young, unripe fruits.

Translators in temperate or tropical areas of Africa and Asia will have a word for these gourds. If the only gourd people are familiar with is round like a ball, then an illustration may help in the text, or a footnote can describe the special shape of the Holy Land gourd, insofar as we know it. The bottle gourd is related to the wild gourd mentioned in 2 Kings 4:39, which poisoned a group of prophets.

Bottle gourd, photo by Nigel Hepper

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

See also plant / gourd / ivy.

myrtle

The Myrtle Myrtus communis is found in the mountains of the Galilee region up to the present, as well as in North Africa and throughout the Middle East. In the apocalyptic passage Isaiah 41:19 it is listed with cedars, acacias, and olives, and we are told that in the new age these verdant trees will replace the thorny bushes of the wilderness. The Arabic as (آس) and the Akkadian asu (𒊍 / 𒀀𒋢𒌝) are cognates of the Hebrew word hadas. The leaves and flowers of the myrtle are used in weddings and in medicine. The wood is used for walking sticks and furniture. The bark and roots yield tannin, used up to the present day in Russia and Turkey to prepare leather.

The myrtle shrub is an evergreen with fragrant leaves and normally grows to a height of 2-3 meters (7-10 feet). It has leathery, dark green leaves, pretty white flowers, and bluish black berries, which have a sweet smell.

Nehemiah 8:15 tells us that branches of the myrtle and other trees were used to make shelters for the Festival of Shelters, a practice still followed by Jews today. The Isaiah references associate the myrtle with a time of renewal and goodness. Taken together we may conclude that when Zechariah situates his vision of horses and riders “among the myrtles,” he is thinking of a sacred place, a place of God’s presence, possibly even a “gateway to heaven,” although the use of the definite article may also point to a particular place that Zechariah and his readers knew about. Some commentators hold that the myrtles in Zechariah’s vision represent the people of Israel. Note that these myrtles are said to be growing in some kind of depression in the ground, whether a valley or ravine, which may itself be symbolic of a negative national experience, perhaps even the Babylonian Exile, as some have suggested.

Myrtles are part of the gigantic Myrtaceae family that includes at least three thousand species throughout the world, including the guava, the eucalyptus, and the clove. Close relatives of the myrtle, however, may be hard to find, so a transliteration from a major language may be the best option. In the poetical Isaiah passages the handling of hadas will depend on what the translator does with the other names of trees in the list, whether they use literary equivalents or transliterations. In Nehemiah, transliteration is advised, unless, of course, myrtle or a close relative of it is known. In Zechariah, since we do not know the significant features of the myrtle that the writer had in mind, it is difficult to make an appropriate descriptive equivalent. However, a transliteration or a generic phrase such as “shrubs” or “small, leafy trees” may be used.

Myrtle flowers, photo by Nigel Hepper
Myrtle branch, photo by Gloria Suess

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

liquidambar (Oriental sweetgum𖺗 storax)

The Hebrew word tsori (“balm”) may be the basis for the word “storax,” which Zohary (Plants of the Bible. Cambridge University Press, 1982) takes to be a name for the dried resin of the liquidambar Liquidambar orientalis, a tree that is also called kataf or nataf in Hebrew.

The Hebrew word nataf does not occur outside of Exodus 30:34 in the Bible. The Septuagint renders it staktē, which New Revised Standard Version, updated edition transliterates as “stacte.” According to Zohary, nataf is a synonym of tsori (= storax), which is found six times in the Bible. The liquidambar (or storax) is a tree that used to grow widely in the Middle East and Turkey.

The liquidambar tree grows to 10 meters (33 feet) tall, and has deeply incised leaves with five points and round yellow flowers on a 4 centimeter (2 inch) stalk. The fruits are prickly. The sticky gray-brown gum is produced by making cuts in the trunk of the tree.

The Jeremiah and Ezekiel references indicate that tsori was medicinal. We conclude from Exodus 30:34 that it was aromatic. Genesis 37:25 shows that it was highly valued in trade with Egypt.

The genus Liquidambar was widespread many thousands of years ago, according to fossil evidence, but it disappeared from Europe when the glaciers came. The surviving species, apart from orientalis in the Middle East, are formosana in South China and Taiwan and styraciflua in the eastern United States and Central America.

The references to tsori in Genesis and Ezekiel are non-rhetorical, as is nataf in Exodus. If Zohary is correct, and the translator wants to be specific, then a transliteration of “storax” may be used in these passages. Alternatively, in Exodus 30:34 translators can use a generic expression such as “resin” or “gum resin”; that is, they can use their local word for the globs of hardened sap that come from trees that produce it.

If a word for “sweet-smelling healing ointment” exists, it can be used for tsori in Genesis. Tsori is the second of three spices the Ishmaelite traders carried in Genesis 37:25, the other two being neko’th (“gum”) and lot (“myrrh” or “resin”). Translators can cover all three words with a phrase such as “different kinds of sweet-smelling medicine and incense.” Transliteration is also possible, from Hebrew tsori or Arabic nakaa/nakati. “Balm” in English is not a good basis for transliteration.

Liquidambar trunk, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

mulberry

The references to mulberry in the Scriptures are all controversial. However, Zohary (Plants of the Bible. Cambridge University Press, 1982) on the basis of cognate words in Sumerian (messikanu, sukannu) confidently associates the Hebrew word mesukan in Isaiah 40:20 with the mulberry tree, as did Thompson before him. Further, they take the Greek word sucaminos in Luke 17:6 as also cognate with Sumerian sukannu. Like the apple, the pomegranate, the fig and the pistachio, the Black Mulberry Morus nigra may have been introduced into the Holy Land from one of the neighboring countries like Persia (now Iran).

The black mulberry is a large, broad tree (6 meters [20 feet] high) that produces flowers and leaves in spring and loses its leaves every year in winter. The crown is broad and low. The trunk gets twisted as it grows old and may rot away, only to be replaced by another one from the same root. People pile stones up in order to support the low branches of old trees. The leaves are stiff, rough, and hairy. The flowers are pollinated by the wind, and the fruit is a rather tart, black berry about the size of a large cashew nut. In Europe and North America, people use mulberries mostly to make pies and wine. A different species, the white mulberry, has a whitish fruit.

The black mulberry tree is similar in size and shape to the sycomore fig. In fact, the translators of the Greek Septuagint introduced considerable confusion by translating the Hebrew word shiqmah as sucaminos (1 Kings 10:27 et al.)

There are at least eighteen subspecies of mulberry in the world, distributed from China to North America. In the Middle East area two have been cultivated, the black mulberry and the white mulberry. The black mulberry grows well in what is now Iran, and it may have been introduced into Canaan from there. In areas where the mulberry tree is found, the local name should be used in Luke 17:6. Where it is not found (for example, most of Africa), transliteration from a major language is advised, for example, muluberi or sikamayin. (French mûrier, Spanish mora, Portuguese amoreira, Arabic tut).

Black mulberry, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

See also mulberry tree.

wormwood

The Hebrew word la‘anah refers literally to a plant, but it is only used figuratively in the Old Testament, as something representing intense bitterness. Despite very little evidence, commentators and botanists have agreed that this word may refer to a substance derived from the white wormwood bush, which is found abundantly in the the deserts of the Holy Land.

White Wormwood Artemisia herba-alba is a bush less than half a meter (18 inches) high, with finely divided fuzzy leaves. These leaves drop at the end of the cool rainy season of Israel and are replaced with something like scales in the hot season. The flowers appear in clusters of two to four around September/October and mature into small, hairy fruits. When the plant matures, the leaves and flowers are dried to make a very bitter tea, or ground into powder, paste, or oil that is used in medicine.

Most of the references to wormwood in the Old Testament are paired with the Hebrew word for “poison/gall” (ro’sh) and are used metaphorically to represent painful experience and sorrow. In Revelation 8:11 a star named Wormwood (apsinthos in Greek) makes a third of the water on earth bitter and poisonous. The leaves of wormwood have a very bitter taste. In small quantities it was used as an anesthetic, and Europeans use it in concocting alcoholic drinks (absinthe, vermouth). It is also used to repel moths and fleas, and as an intestinal worm expeller.

The white wormwood of the Holy Land is found throughout the Middle East, North Africa (Egypt, Morocco) and Southwest Europe, but there are at least 300 species of Artemisia throughout the world, usually in dry areas. A Chinese type (huang huahaosu) is used as medicine against malaria. Artemisia cina and Artemisia maritima are found in Eurasia, where they produce santonica, an anti-worm medicine. Artemisia tilesii is used by the Inuits like codeine. The sagebrush plants of the American West also belong to this genus and were used by Native Americans for various conditions.

Most languages have words for plants that have bitter leaves and/or roots. Since all of the references to wormwood in the Old Testament are metaphorical, these plants can be used to convey the essential component of the passages. As noted above, most of the references to la‘anah are coupled with ro’sh, so the two must be dealt with together in those passages. If particular plants are not available, phrases such as “bitter fruit,” “bitter spice,” or “bitter thing” can be used.

White wormwood, Wikimedia Commons

Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

See also turn to wormwood.