The Bible is dominated by stories and symbols. Those symbols are embedded in story, they don’t exist on their own, but they gain their meaning through the procession of the narrative of the cosmos. We read their meaning into them because of story.
As an aside, I wonder if this means that an eschatological ontology trumps a sacramental one, but that will need some thinking about.
Three of the Bible’s biggest symbols are the tree, the table, and the sea. In this post I’m attempting to chart some of the features of the story of the tree. Since there are lots of ways to do that, I’ve restricted myself to first considering the Hebrew word ets, meaning tree, or wood. This is the easiest story to trace because you can get there through word study—for all this misses the use of particular trees to mean particular things, especially in the prophets.
We first meet the tree in Genesis 1, planted in the ground and yielding fruit. We notice that they have seed. We then notice that humans are described in tree-like terms. Then the trees are given to Adam and Eve to eat from.
In Genesis 2 there are suddenly two trees in the middle of the garden. They form temple architecture, the holy-of-holies is the space between two trees rather than two cherubim. One is the tree of life, the other the tree of the knowledge of good and bad (or ‘wisdom’). The second is not for food but all the others are.
The drama continues into the next chapter, with the fall intertwined with these two trees and their fruit.
We next meet trees when Noah cuts them down to build an ark from them, which is the first hint we’ve had that things can be made from trees, they don’t just grow fruit. There’s something here of the maturing world, perhaps, especially when we think of the way Noah acts like a maturer Adam after the flood. Even if that’s overreading, we see that the life of the tree can be used to make a way through the waters of death. The connection between the cross and baptism is already being sketched in story even if it doesn’t come to fruition until many years later.
The next trees we meet have Abraham meeting God under them at Mamre. It’s like Eden again, with God under the trees leading to rest and the consuming of much bread. Then the trees that Abraham cuts, that Isaac carries, and that are built into a bonfire for a sacrifice: the trees that are used to kill the ram with the thorny crown. It writes itself: the cross that Jesus carries, that the lamb of God is killed on. That’s the second time trees are used to make something. Baptism, then the cross.
The next tree is the one that Joseph’s baker is hung on. A man of bread is crucified.
Genesis’ story of the tree is about Jesus, and about the church.
Trees appear in the story of the plagues in Egypt, containing blood where there was water, broken by hail, eaten by locusts—this is a story of decreation like that of the flood.
Then in the wilderness a tree makes bitter water sweet. Trees next appear in the construction of the Tabernacle, made of acacia wood. Trees make arks, they kill sacrifices, they make tabernacles. That’s pretty much all they’re used for.
In Leviticus again they’re for the burning of burned offerings. We have more normal uses of wood as they’re described in the use of housebuilding but also we read of their use in cleansing polluted places. The future land of their inheritance is a place like Eden, laden with trees.
In Numbers the gathering of trees (sticks, but it’s the same word) on the Sabbath is a problem: this ongoing association between trees and rest continues. Trees are where you meet with God—you don’t need to gather more on the Sabbath.
In Deuteronomy we meet the first false trees: Asherah poles and idols carved from trees. This feels like a twisting of the story established: we meet with God under trees, they provide protection, cleansing, sacrifice. Trees point to the cross, until they don’t. Those who are killed by hanging on a tree are cursed.
In Joshua trees are a place of execution for kings. A place of cursing for false kings, in particular. In Judges 9 the parable of the trees again depicts people as trees: they appoint for themselves a bramble of a man to rule over themselves: Abimelech is a thornbush, not a fruit-bearing tree. People are trees, yes, but that doesn’t seem to always be a good thing.
Through the later narratives, trees are mostly building materials, in most detail for the Temple. The widow of Zarephath is collecting trees when Elijah helps her. Moab is destroyed by having its good trees felled. A tree allows the axehead to be recovered.
Trees rebuild the Temple in Ezra, and in Esther they crucify an evil man on one. The Psalms open with people as trees again, and throughout trees are signs of the land that God promises: trees bring life. In the Proverbs ‘the tree of life’ stands as a synonym for ‘what brings life.’ In the Song of Songs, Jesus is an apple tree.
In the prophets we again laugh at the gods made of trees—so different to the true God who would be nailed to one.
Trees bring life. Trees bring a curse. Trees provide protection and cleansing. Trees are where you meet with God. All of this is picked up in the New Testament assertion that Jesus died on a tree (Galatians 3) and that the church is dominated by a two-trunked tree that fruits all year around (Revelation 21).
This way of tracing a story misses details—Moses’ burning bush doesn’t come into it due to the focus on a particular word but it’s still using that ‘tree’ symbolism—but tracing ets gives you the shape. There are thematic resonances attached to particular symbols, but those arise from how they’re used in the story. In the later story those resonances are in play. The Bible is a book of trees.
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nuakh 