THE olive-tree, its fruit and oil, must have been known before the deluge, but whether the dove and the branch were emblems of peace and good-will by previous custom, or whether the hint was taken from this transaction, I shall not attempt to determine. The tradition among the Greeks that the first olive-branch that reached their country was carried by a dove from Phoenicia to the temple of Jupiter in Epirus, is certainly very remarkable. The connection of the dove with the olive, however, is quite natural. These groves are their favourite resort. In them they build their nests and rear their young and there may be heard all day long their low, soft cooing, in sweet unison with the breeze which whispers peace to the troubled and repose to the weary.
*Dr. Thomson, by question and answer, gives some interesting and useful information on the olive.—Editor.
It seems a fair deduction from the narrative in Genesis that the flood must have risen in such a quiet way as not to destroy the trees; and must also have remained but a short time universal, else the olive would have perished. We may at least conclude, that lands sufficiently low and warm for the olive had been for some time uncovered when the dove went forth, or it could not have found young leaves upon them. This tree does not flourish in Syria more than three thousand feet above the sea, and in the interior not so high. Indeed, it is scarcely found at all in countries adjacent to Ararat and the dove had probably to make a long flight for its leaf, which it could easily do before “evening.” And the objection to the literal meaning or strict veracity of this statement has no solid foundation, in the fact that the olive is not an inhabitant of the cold mountains of Armenia.
Have you ever met with any certain traces of the flood in this country? There are myriads of fossil shells on Lebanon and elsewhere, even on the tops of the highest ranges, but no geologist would appeal to them in proof of the Noahic deluge. That was an event wholly miraculous and the evidence of the fact is to be found in the sacred record, not in geological researches. I would by no means intimate, however, that future investigation may not uncover many well-ascertained footprints of that mighty catastrophe. But it is altogether foreign to our purpose to wander off into geological speculations and we are not yet done with the olive-tree.
Far from it. There are many references to it in the Bible, some of which I am not able yet to appreciate. Thus Hosea says, “His beauty shall be as the olive-tree” (Hos. xiv. 6). It does not strike me as very beautiful, but perhaps one’s eye needs to be educated before it can distinguish properly and decide correctly on such questions in new and strange circumstances.
No doubt, to me this noble grove, spreading like a silver sea along the base of the hills and climbing their ascending
terraces, is perfectly charming; and it speaks of peace and plenty, food and gladness. The olive-tree and its fruit make the face of man to shine in more senses than one. To a stranger it is necessarily destitute of these pleasing associations; but to me it is at all times both charming and refreshing to ride through such a grove when clothed with flowers, or when bowed down with fat and oily berries.
Moses, in that last ode which he taught the children of Israel, speaks of “oil out of the flinty rock” (Deut. xxxii. 13); and until now I had supposed that this tree delighted in hard, rocky soil; but this vast grove spreads over a soft and sandy plain.
You were not mistaken, only misled by appearances. The substratum of this plain is chalky marl, abounding in flint and the sand is merely an intruder blown in from this desert on our right. In such soil our tree flourishes best, both in the plains and upon the mountains. It delights to insinuate its roots into the clefts of the rocks and crevices of this flinty marl; and from thence it draws its richest stores of oil. If the overlying mould is so deep that its roots cannot reach the rock beneath, I am told that the tree languishes and its berries are small and sapless. There is, however, another explanation of this figure of Moses. In ancient times generally (and in many places at the present day) the olives were ground to a pulp in huge stone basins, by rolling a heavy stone wheel over them and the oil was then expressed in stone presses established near by. Frequently these presses, with their floors, gutters, troughs and cisterns, were all hewn out of solid rock and thus it literally “poured out rivers of oil” (Job xxix. 6), as Job hath it in his parable. There is a ruin above Tyre, near Kânâh, called Im-il-‘Awamîd, where scores of such presses are still standing, almost as perfect as they were twenty centuries ago, although every vestige of the groves which supplied the oil has long since disappeared.
I notice that the branches of some trees have been cut off and then grafted; why is this done? Simply because the
olive, in its natural wild state, bears no berries, or but few and these are small and destitute of oil.
Paul has an extended reference to this matter. Stay till I turn to the passage, for there are some things in it which I have never understood. Here it is: “If some of the branches be broken off and thou being a wild olive-tree, wert grafted in among them and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive-tree, boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee” (Rom. xi. 17, 18, 24). And then, in the 24th verse, “For if thou wert cut out of the olive-tree, which is wild by nature and wert grafted, contrary to nature, into a good olive-tree,” etc. Now here is my difficulty and the exact point of inquiry: The olive, you say (and so says the Apostle), is wild by nature and it must be grafted by the good before it will bear fruit; but here the Apostle speaks of grafting the wild into the good, not the good upon the wild.
True, he does; but observe, he says expressly that this is contrary to nature, as it really is.*
*It is quite common to say that the Apostle was referring to a process that was unknown. Even Sunday and Headlam in their commentary on Romans describe it as “a process which can never be actually used” and Dr. Thomson says it never succeeds. Sir William Ramsay, however, has pointed out in his Pauline Studies that a learned German, Dr. Fischer, gave a thorough study to the subject and published two goodly volumes on the Olive (Der Oelbaum) in which the process is described and where he says that, in exceptional circumstances, the process is resorted to even to this day. It is quite true that the point of the Apostle’s argument requires that the process is unnatural but to say that it can never be used shows how much the Apostle knew in comparison with his learned critics of the twentieth century.—Editor.
. . . It is in the kingdom of grace that a process thus contrary to nature can be truly successful; and it is this circumstance which the Apostle has seized upon and with admirable tact, to magnify the mercy shown to the Gentiles, by grafting them, a wild race, contrary to the nature of such operations, into the good olive-tree of the Church and causing them to flourish there and bring forth fruit unto eternal life. The Apostle lived in the land
of the olive and was in no danger of falling into a blunder in founding his argument upon such a circumstance in its cultivation.
But have all the trees in this vast grove been reclaimed from a wild state by grafting? Certainly not. The Apostle himself speaks of the root of the good olive—implying that, by some means or other, it had been changed. The process by which this result is reached is quite simple. You observe certain knobs, or large warts, so to speak, on the body of this tree. Cut off one of these which has a branch growing out of it, above the place where it has been grafted; plant it in good soil, water it carefully and it will strike out roots and grow. It is now a good tree from the root and all scions taken from it are also “good by nature.” But if the knob, or branch be taken below the grafting, your tree comes wild again. The greater part of this grove is now “good” from the root. I am told, however, by olive-growers, that there is a tendency to degenerate and that it is often a great improvement to graft even a good tree with one that is still better.
Job says, “He shall cast off his flower as the olive” (Job xv. 33). What is there in the casting off of olive flowers which can illustrate the rejection and ruin of those who trust in vanity, for which purpose the patriarch employs the figure?
The olive is the most prodigal of all fruit-bearing trees in flower. It literally bends under the load of them. But then not one in a hundred comes to maturity. The tree casts them off by millions, as if they were of no more value than flakes of snow, which they closely resemble. So it will be with those who put their trust in vanity. Cast off, they melt away and no one takes the trouble to ask after such empty, useless things—just as our olive seems to throw off in contempt the myriads of flowers that signify nothing and turns all her fatness to those which will mature into fruit.
This tree is of slow growth and the husbandman must have long patience. Except under circumstances peculiarly favourable, it bears no berries until the seventh year; nor is the crop worth much until the tree is ten or fifteen years old; but then “the labour of the olive” is extremely profitable and it will continue to yield its fruit to extreme old age, like the excellent of the earth. So long as there is a fragment remaining, though externally the tree looks dry as a post, yet does it continue to yield its load of oily berries and for twenty generations the owners gather fruit from the faithful old patriarch. This tree also requires but little labour or care of any kind and if long neglected, will revive again when the ground is dug or ploughed and begin afresh to yield as before. Vineyards forsaken die out almost immediately and mulberry orchards neglected run rapidly to ruin; but not so the olive. I saw the desolate hills of Jebel-el-‘Alâh, above Antioch, covered with these groves, although no one had paid attention to them for half a century. If the olive bore every year, its value would be incalculable; but, like most other trees, it yields only every other year. Even with this deduction, it is the most valuable species of property in the country. Large trees, in a good season, will yield from ten to fifteen gallons of oil and an acre of them gives a crop worth at least one hundred dollars. No wonder it is so highly prized.
The value of this tree is enhanced by the fact that its fruit is indispensable for the comfort and even the existence of the mass of the community. The Biblical references to this matter are not at all exaggerated. The berry pickled, forms the general relish to the farmer’s dry bread. He goes forth to his work in the field at early dawn, or sets out on a journey, with no other provision than olives wrapped up in a quantity of his paper-like loaves; and with this he is contented. Then almost every kind of dish is cooked in oil and without it the goodwife is utterly confounded; and when the oil fails, the lamp in the dwelling of the poor expires. Moreover, the
entire supply of soap in this country is from the produce of the olive. Habakkuk, therefore, gives a very striking attestation of his faith in God when he says, “Although the labour of the olive should fail, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Hab. iii. 18).
Isaiah refers to the gathering of the olive thus: “Yet gleaning grapes shall be in it, as the shaking of an olive-tree; two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost fruitful branches thereof” (Isa. xvii. 6). Have you noticed the circumstances alluded to by the prophet?
Very often; and it is the language of familiar acquaintance with the subject. As you may never have an opportunity to watch the process, I will describe it as it occurs in such places as Hasbeiya, where I have studied it to best advantage. Early in autumn the berries begin to drop of themselves, or are shaken off by the wind. They are allowed to remain under the trees for some time, guarded by the watchmen of the town—a very familiar Biblical character. Then a proclamation is made by the governor that all who have trees go out and pick what has fallen. Previous to this, not even the owners are allowed to gather olives in the groves. This proclamation is repeated once or twice, according to the season. In November comes the general and final summons, which sends forth all Hasbeiya. No olives are now safe unless the owner looks after them, for the watchmen are removed and the orchards are alive with men, women and children. It is a merry time and the laugh and the song echo far and wide. Everywhere the people are in the trees “shaking” them with all their might, to bring down the fruit. This is what the prophet had in mind. The effort is to make a clear sweep of all the crop; but in spite of shaking and beating there is always a gleaning left—”two or three berries in the top of the uppermost boughs, four or five in the outermost fruitful branches.” These are afterward gleaned by the very poor, who have no trees or their own (Deut. xxix. 20); and by industry they gather enough to
keep a lamp in their habitation during the dismal nights of winter and to cook their mess of pottage and bitter herbs. I have often seen these miserable outcasts gleaning among the groves and shivering in winter’s biting cold. In fact, the “shaking of the olive” is the severest operation in Syrian husbandry, particularly in such mountainous regions as Hasbeiya. When the proclamation goes forth to “shake,” there can be no postponement. The rainy season has already set in; the trees are dripping with the last shower, or bowing under a load of moist snow; but shake, shake you must, drenching yourself and those below in an artificial storm of rain, snow and olives. No matter how piercing the wind, how biting the frost, this work must go on from early dawn till dark night; and then the weary labourer must carry on his aching back a heavy load of dripping berries two or three miles up the mountain to his home. To comprehend the necessity of all this, you must remember that the olive-groves are in common—not owned in common, but planted on the same general tract of land and are without fences, walls, or hedges of any kind, mingled together like the trees in a natural forest. This tree belongs to Zeid, that to ‘Abeid, as they say and so on through the whole plantation. Such, at least, is the case with the groves we are describing. The vast orchard of Shwoifat, through which we have been riding for the last hour, has a thousand owners and in “shaking time” every one must look sharply after his own, or he loses all. There is an utter confounding of the meum and tuum* in the general conscience of olive-gatherers.
To what particular circumstances does David refer in the 128th Psalm, where he says, “Thy children shall be like olive-plants round about thy table?”
Follow me into the grove and I will show you what may have suggested the comparison. Here we have hit upon a beautiful illustration. This aged and decayed tree is surrounded,
as you see, by several young and thrifty shoots which spring from the root of the venerable parent. They seem to uphold, protect and embrace it. We may even fancy that they now bear that load of fruit which would otherwise be demanded of the feeble parent. Thus do good and affectionate children gather round the table of the righteous. Each contributes something to the common wealth and welfare of the whole—a beautiful sight with which may God refresh the eyes of every friend of mine.—Thomson’s The Land and the Book.