The Plant Kingdom V

   920. Wormwood is used to symbolize bitterness because it has a unique bitterness taste. The plant has many species that grow in Palestine. It is almost more of a shrub, though it can grow quite tall. It is in the same plant family as mugwart and western sagebrush. These plants all have a bitter taste and strong odor. The Hebrews thought of bitter things as poisonous and thus symbols of calamity and sorrow, but they used wormwood as a seasoning, a tonic, and a worm medicine.

   921. Balm of Gilead refers to a fragrant resin that is obtained from cuts in the bark of trees. It is used for both perfumes and medicines. Several different plants produce such resins, and no one is sure which one Jeremiah meant. It might have been the Jericho balsam, but a more likely possibility is liquidambar, which produces the gum known as storax or stacte, which is still used in medicine. It is almost identical to the tree Americans call red gum or sweet gum.

   922. Compared to the desert, Canaan must have seemed like paradise, with its vineyards and its orchards of olives, figs, dates, and pomegranates. Next to the grape, the fig was the Israelites' most valued crop. It provided a large part of their daily food. Both figs and dates were eaten either fresh or dried. Fig fruits were also used medicinally;  and the sheaths of date clusters provided a sap that was used to make a kind of wine as well as a syrup called "honey" in the Bible.

   923. Pomegranates grow wild as large shrubs or small trees in many parts of the Near East. So important was this "apple with grains," filled with many red-colored, juicy seeds, to the Israelites that it was used as a design to decorate the Temple and also coins in Jerusalem.

   924. Along the Nile and throughout the ancient Near East, the most important grain crops were wheat and barley. Both grains have been cultivated in Egypt and the Near East since the earliest recorded times. The earliest evidence comes from near Mount Carmel, on the coast of northern Israel. It dates from about nine thousand years ago.