BOTANY (BIBLICAL). The study of biblical botany is not an extensive one, and mainly consists in the identification of trees and plants mentioned in Scripture. The whole number of vegetable pro ductions specifically alluded to in the Bible does not exceed 2So. With botany as a science the Jews were wholly unacquainted, and the properties of plants were only studied by them superficially for medicinal purposes. Of natural philosophy they knew nothing, and even to natural history their writings contain but few allusions. We are vaguely told, as an illustration of the wisdom of Solomon, that he stake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall' (I Kings iv. 33); but the example of the great king seems rather to have been admired than imitated. No Hebrew book on the subject of the vegetable world exists ; and although it has been asserted that Solomon wrote about plants, it is clear, from the language of Josephus, that the Jews did not know of any such writing, for after enumerating Solomon's loos 13L3X1a on songs and music, and his 3000 pi(3Aot of proverbs and images, Josephus merely adds, that he drew moral instruction from the phenomena of the animal and vegetable kingdoms (en0' EMOS Sevapoo 7rapapoXiy K. r. X. Jos. Anteq. viii. 2. 5). It is exactly this metaphorical and illustlative use of the simplest facts of vegetable physiology which we find in the Bible. The want of scientific knowledge in no way precluded the Hebrews from an enthusiastic and almost passion ate appreciation of the outward woild; and although we do not belong to the number of those who consider that science deadens the sense of beauty, it is clear from history that it is possible for men, without any technical or systematical knowledge, to become proficient students in the school of nature. Many of the grandest psalms derive their beauty from the noble yet unscientific interpretation of every-day phenomena. As speci mens of fine ethic illustration derived from trees and plants, we may refer to Job xxiv. 20; Ps. i. 3; cxiv. 12; Prov. xi. 30; Eccles. xi. 3; Is. lxv. 22; Matt. iii. to ; Luke xii. 27 ; Phil. i. I t ; Eph. 17, etc.
Flowers in the Bible are similarly treated. Very few species are mentioned ; and although their beauty is once or twice alluded to in descriptive passages (sometimes under the general term 'grass,' Matt. vi. 3o; Cant. ii. 12; v. 13), they are seldom introduced, except in the single pathetic analogy which they afford to the transitory life and glory of mankind (Job xiv. 2; Ps. ciii. 15; Is. xxviii. I ; xl. 6; Jam. i. to ; I Pet. i. 24). Gardens on), nu), 011m, irapabetaot), were in use among orientals from the earliest times (Gen. xiii. to ; Deut. xi. 12, etc.) ; but although they were planted with flowers and fragrant herbs (Cant. vi. z ; iv.
16), often chosen for their beauty and rarity (Is. xvii. to), yet they appear to have been chiefly cul tivated for useful and culinary purposes (Jer. xxix. 5 ; Cant. vi. II; iv. 13; Deut. viii. 8, etc.) But it must not be supposed that biblical botany is an easy as well as a limited study. The botani cal artist,' says Sir Thos. Browne, in his Miscellane ous Tracts, meets everywhere (in the Bible) with vegetables, and from the fig-leaf in Genesis to the star wormwood in the Apocalypse, are variously interspersed expressions from plants, elegantly ad vantaging the significancy of the text : whereof many being delivered in a language proper to Judzca and neighbour countries, are imperfectly apprehended by the common reader, and now doubtfully made out even by the Jewish exposi tor. And even in those which are confessedly known, the elegancy is often lost in the appre hension of the reader unacquainted with such vegetables, or but nakedly knowing their natures : whereof, holding a pertinent apprehension, you' cannot pass over such expressions without some doubt or want of satisfaction in your judgment.' These remarks of the learned physician well ex press the nature of the research necessary to a knowledge of Scripture plants, and are the preface to some ingenious disquisitions on many of the more obscure kinds (Sir T. Browne's Works, Bohn's ed., As an example of the extreme vagueness of nomenclature which makes it often impossible to identify with certainty a scripture tree or plant, we may take the words El, Elah, Elon, Ilan, Allah, Allon, about the rendering of which words the utmost doubt is entertained, as the different versions fluctuate unaccountably between Spin, pdx.05., rep1,3ip8os, rXciTapos, Sepapov, convallis, and quer ens; while in the A. V. they are rendered some times `oak' (Is. i. 3o), sometimes teil tree' (Is. vi. 13), `elms' (Hos. iv. 13), `plain' (Gen. xii. 6, etc.), and `trees' (Is. lxi. 3. See Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 519, seq.); and, to add to our con fusion, not only are these words apparently inter changeable, but even Eshel, a tamarisk,' stands in one place (I Sam. xxxi. 13) for Elah, ` an oak' (I Chron. x. 12). Hence there is nothing impos sible, whatever improbability there may be in the identification, by some writers, of the Allon Bachuth of Gen, xxxv. 8, with the palm-tree of Judg. iv. 3; xx. 33, and the tree (A. V. pain) men tioned in I Sam. x. 3. As another instance we may mention the word Armon ((1n131), in the'rendering of which name the versions waver inconsistently between rXciravos, LXX. (Gen. xxx. 37), pla tanus, Vulg. chestnut-tree, A.V., while in Ezra xxxi. 8, the LXX. render it by rtrus, and some modern writers have taken it for the maple or the beech.