EZRACH (e'z'eak), (Heb. 7;7 ez-rawch').
This word occurs only once in Scripture, namely, in Ps. xxxvii:35: 'I have seen the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green bay tree' (ezrach). Commentators and translators have differed respecting the meaning of this word, some supposing it to indicate a specific tree, as the laurel, and others, supported by the Septuagint and Vulgate, the cedar of Lebanon. It is by some considered to mean an evergreen tree, and by others a green tree that grows in its native soil, or that has not suffered by transplanting, as such a tree spreads itself luxuriantly. It appears likely that the Hebrew word must have been derived from the Arabic ashruk, which is described in Arabic works on Materia Medica as a tree having leaves like the ghar, that is, the bay tree or laurus nobilis of botanists. If ezrach, therefore, was orig inally the same word as ashruk, then it would in dicate some tree resembling the bay tree rather than the bay tree itself ; but until that can be dis covered the latter is, upon the whole, well suited to stand as its representative.
The bay tree is well known to be common in the south of Europe, as in Spain, Italy, Greece and the Levant. It is usually from twenty to thirty feet in height, often having a bushy appearance, from throwing up so many suckers; but in Eng land it has attained a height of sixty feet, which is not unusual in warmer climates. It is unnecessary to allude further to the celebrity which it attained among the ancients—a celebrity which has not yet passed away, the laurel wreath being still the sym bolical crown as well of warriors as of poets. Its ever-green, grateful appearance, its thick shade, and the agreeable spicy odor of its leaves, point it out as that which was most likely in the eye of the Psalmist. (See BAY TREE.) J. F. R.