Olive-tree

1 definition found

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Olive-tree
     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).