In God’s Garden Egzanp

Myrtle

The Old Testament Israelites lived in an agrarian society, and even though Jesus’s listeners in the first century would have had more varied occupations, they could still understand spiritual matters more clearly if they were explained in plant-based terms. Today, to understand the same spiritual realities, we do well to learn more about the natural world of the Holy Land.

Our calendars might be filled with shopping lists, appointment reminders, and project deadlines, but the Israelites’ calendar was filled with the sowing and harvesting of a variety of crops. Even their worship reflected the rhythm of the seasons. There were occasions when the harvest was incorporated into the worship itself, such as when the Israelites offered the “firstfruits,” or the first portion of the harvest, to God.

We see another example of a plant being used in association with the Israelites’ worship with the use of myrtle branches in the Old Testament. In the same family as the eucalyptus, the myrtle tree is a fragrant evergreen. It produces showy white blossoms followed by dark berries that, while edible, are not tasty. Myrtle is not mentioned in the Bible until the time of the captivity. In the original prescription for booth-making for the Israelites’ celebration of the Feast of Booths (Leviticus 23:39–43), “myrtle” doesn’t occur. But it does show up in Nehemiah as the Israelites endeavor to return to right worship after the Babylonian exile. Besides blessing the people with better-smelling booths, this change perhaps prefigured the grace in Christ that would prescribe a worship attainable by every person the world over as they worshipped the Lord “in spirit and in truth” (see John 4:23–24).