olive

The olive family has over four hundred species in the world. Many of them grow in Africa, India, and Australia, but it is the one in the Bible, the European Olive Olea europaea, that has become famous. It is likely that the olive was domesticated in Egypt or the eastern Mediterranean basin in the third millennium B.C. The botanist Newberry argued that Egypt was its original home. We know from the Bible that olives grew in the hills of Samaria and in the foothills. There is a wild variety, called Olea europaea sylvestris, that is smaller than the domestic one; it produces a smaller fruit with less oil. The Apostle Paul refers to this wild variety in Romans 11:17 and 11:24. Olives are easily propagated by cuttings and by grafting fruitful species into less fruitful ones. They grow best on hillsides where the rain drains off quickly. The fruit forms by August but does not ripen until December or January.

The olive is not a big tree, reaching up to perhaps 10 meters (33 feet), but with pruning it is usually kept to around 5 meters (17 feet) tall. The leaves are grayish green above, and whitish underneath. The bark of young trees is silvery gray but gets darker and rougher as the tree ages. The trunk also gets twisted and hollow and may reach over a meter in thickness. Olives grow for hundreds of years, and some in Israel have possibly reached two thousand years.

The fruit of the olive is about 2 centimeters (1 inch) long and a bit more than a centimeter (1/2 inch) thick. It has a hard stone inside and a soft skin that covers the oily flesh. Today a mature tree may yield 10-20 kilograms (22-44 pounds) of fruit, which, when processed, will yield 1.3-2.6 kilograms (3.6 pounds) of oil.

For the Jews the “big three” trees were the vine, the fig, and the olive. People ate olive fruits, but more importantly, they squeezed the oil from the fruits, and used it for cooking, for lamps, for rubbing on the body, for medicine, and in religion. Jacob poured olive oil on the stone where he saw a vision of angels, declaring it a holy place (Genesis 28:18). Moses, similarly, anointed the Tabernacle and its equipment with olive oil mixed with sweet-smelling resins (Exodus 40:9). Aaron and the priests who served in the Tabernacle were also anointed (Exodus 29:21).

Some types of wild olive grow in Africa, India, and Australia, but are not well-known. The so-called “African olive” produces a black, oil-bearing fruit much like an olive. It is common as a snack in northern Nigeria. The “Chinese olive” is also a species of Canarium and may be a possible cultural substitute, if it produces edible fruit and oil. The “Russian olive” grown in dry regions of the world is a member of the Elaeagnus family and not a true olive. A variety of olive (Olea cuspidate) is used for building in India and Nepal, but it is probably not possible to use it in the Bible except perhaps in a study Bible where you could say that the biblical olive was related to this tree.

Since most of the kinds of olive trees in the world do not have edible fruit, it may not be possible to substitute a local variety. If it is done, however, a footnote would be required saying that the Palestinian kind produced edible fruit and oil. If a variety of Canarium is eaten in your area, you could use the local name for it. Otherwise transliterate from a major language.

Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, Wikimedia Commons

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

Translation commentary on Nehemiah 5:11

Return to them …: Before now Nehemiah has been speaking in the first person singular and plural, but now he addresses his audience in the second person plural imperative. He is not calling on them to forgive all their loans but to Return all the properties that had been pledged as collateral for their loans. This means that those who loaned money would have no more legal guarantees for the repayment of their loans. Nehemiah’s plea is made very emphatic by the Hebrew particle naʾ that immediately follows the imperative Return (see the comments on naʾ at Neh 1.6). BNT renders this emphasis with the French equivalent of “Please!”

Hundredth of money is literally “one hundredth of the silver.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project with a B rating says that this can be interpreted as a “sizeable quantity” of silver or as “interest.” Some commentators have suggested that it referred to the monthly interest rate, that is, one percent each month, but that would have been a very low rate of interest at that time. Others take it as referring to a “percentage of interest” that was charged on the property taken as collateral for loans. New Revised Standard Version interprets it in this way by translating the last half of the verse as “and the interest on money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.” This translation is recommended to translators. “Debts” in Good News Translation and “income” in Revised English Bible are based on proposed emendations of the Hebrew text suggested by one Septuagint manuscript, and should not be followed.

The grain, wine, and oil were the products of their fields, their vineyards, and their olive orchards. It seems that a percentage had to be paid from the produce of their properties based on the value of their own properties that had been pledged as collateral for their loans. The Hebrew word for oil that is used here is not the usual Hebrew word. It is derived from a Hebrew root that means “to shine” or “to glisten” (Koops). It is used here to refer to olive oil. It may simply be translated oil as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. Olive orchards were the areas of land where olive trees were planted (see Ezra 6.9).

Which you have been exacting of them is very formal English style. It means “that you have been making them pay.”

Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Nehemiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .