The olive-tree was a characteristic and highly useful tree of Palestine. Scripture uses it as a picture of prosperity, beauty, strength, and covenant privilege, and Paul uses the olive tree in an illustration concerning Jews and Gentiles.
Definition
The olive-tree is one of the characteristic and useful trees of Palestine. It was cultivated throughout the land and supplied fruit, oil, and wood. Scripture also describes it as a notable tree of the good land and uses its branches, wood, and cultivated growth in several settings.
Biblical Usage
The olive branch brought by Noah’s dove, Jotham’s parable, and references to prosperity and beauty show the tree’s biblical associations. Paul uses the good and wild olive trees to illustrate the relationship of Jews and Gentiles, with Gentiles described as grafted in.
Historical Background
Olive trees thrive in warm, sunny situations and can live to great age. Their oil supported domestic life and trade, while olive wood was used for temple cherubim, doors, and posts. The tree was abundant in Palestine and especially in Galilee.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
Is frequently mentioned in Scripture. The dove from the ark brought an olive-branch to Noah (Gen. 8:11). It is mentioned among the most notable trees of Palestine, where it was cultivated long before the time of the Hebrews (Deut. 6:11; 8:8). It is mentioned in the first Old Testament parable, that of Jotham (Judg. 9:9), and is named among the blessings of the “good land,” and is at the present day the one characteristic tree of Palestine. The oldest olive-trees in the country are those which are enclosed in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is referred to as an emblem of prosperity and beauty and religious privilege (Ps. 52:8; Jer. 11:16; Hos. 14:6). The two “witnesses” mentioned in Rev. 11:4 are spoken of as “two olive trees standing before the God of the earth.” (Comp. Zech. 4:3, 11-14.) The “olive-tree, wild by nature” (Rom. 11:24), is the shoot or cutting of the good olive-tree which, left ungrafted, grows up to be a “wild olive.” In Rom. 11:17 Paul refers to the practice of grafting shoots of the wild olive into a “good” olive which has become unfruitful. By such a process the sap of the good olive, by pervading the branch which is “graffed in,” makes it a good branch, bearing good olives. Thus the Gentiles, being a “wild olive,” but now “graffed in,” yield fruit, but only through the sap of the tree into which they have been graffed. This is a process “contrary to nature” (11:24).
