Palm trees are beautiful. I didn’t grow up in an area with many palm trees, so I mostly saw them at the beach. I remember seeing them as a kid and was impressed with how tall they were. Their leaves only grew at the top and spread up and out like they were somehow erupting out of the bark itself.
The town I live in has a lot more palm trees than it used to, so I’ve taken them for granted. Most times I don’t even acknowledge their existence.
I don’t anymore. Now they serve as a reminder of something far more beautiful and cooler than a day at the beach.
The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Psalm 92:12-15
Biblical Trees
The Bible has a lot to say about palm trees.
Oftentimes, the Bible uses the image of a tree as a figurative device to teach important lessons or give warnings. You may have read passages that reference the “Cedars of Lebanon,” or passages that mention branches, boughs, or leaves. Jesus Christ, for example, is referenced as the root of David, or the “true vine.” (John 15:1) The prophet Hosea states that if Israel repents, its “branches shall spread and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.” (Hosea 14:6)
The Tree of Life, for example, figures both at the Creation as well as the Millennial Jerusalem, and both trees have the power to heal the nations.
So, if trees and tree idioms are used consistently throughout the Bible, then what is the Holy Spirit trying to tell us about them? And what about palm trees? Is there anything about them that should get our attention?
Let’s look and see.
Palm Trees Refer to Beauty
According to Psalm 92, the palm tree is idiomatic of something that is righteous or beautiful. It is easy to see why. Palm trees are beautiful and you often find them next to gorgeous beaches, like the one I visited as a kid. Their beauty has inspired the names of both people and whole countries. Phoenicia, for example, derives its name from the Greek “land of palm trees.” Jericho was once the “City of Palm Trees.” (Deut. 34:3.) The Hebrew word for palm tree is “tamar,” and given the tree’s association with beauty, several women in the Bible are named Tamar (one of whom is an ancestor of Jesus). (e.g., Matt. 1:3.) In the Song of Songs, the husband gazes upon his wife’s stature as that of a palm tree. (Song 7:7).
So prevalent was the palm tree in the Middle East (unlike now), that it shouldn’t be surprising that it has inspired so much etymology and geography.
Spiritual beauty is also referenced by Psalm 92.
The righteous are “ever full of sap and green,” and their fruit-bearing capability for the Lord is strong even in their old age. So it is with Christians who lean on the Lord daily.
Palm Trees Refer to Righteousness
The palm tree is also heavily linked with righteousness. When Deborah was a judge of Israel, she held court under a palm tree. (Judges 4:5.) Even after Deborah was gone, the palm tree that she sat under continued to stand and was called the “Palm of Deborah.”
The Bible’s first reference to the palm tree comes from the Book of Exodus. After the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and began their journey in the wilderness, they came upon a place called Elim. Elim was noted as having 12 wells of fresh water and 70 palm trees. (Exodus 15:27, Numbers 33:9). (HINT: the numbers 12 and 70 should get your attention.) Elim was sufficient to shelter the hundreds of thousands of Israelites that escaped Egypt.
The palm tree as a symbol of righteousness is furthered when you link Elim with the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament.
In Luke 9, Jesus sends forth the 12 Apostles in His name to preach the Kingdom of God and heal the sick. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out 70 disciples into the surrounding country as “sheep amidst wolves” to do the same. Ancient Christians understood that Old Testament Elim was a foreshadowing of the grace and salvation under Jesus that surpasses the Law:
When the people of God went out from Egypt, their sixth resting place, in which “there were twelve fountains of water and seventy palm trees,” was called Elim (that is, “of rams”), so that both by its name and by its appearance it might contain the figure of the apostles and the apostolic men.
Bede, On the Tabernacle, 2.4
How great it is to know that the Christian, a tree of righteousness, should be sustained by the living water of Christ! May we be comforted by the Grace of our Lord as if resting under the shade of this beautiful tree.
How Palm Trees Refer to the Messiah
Palm branches feature prominently in the Feast of Tabernacles. According to the Believer’s Bible, the feast itself commemorates Israel’s wilderness wanderings and foreshadows living in the land during the Millennium. The feast was to be celebrated for seven days with the first day spent gathering “boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.” (Lev. 23:40.) The Jews were to then build booths with those branches to commemorate peace and rest.
And, of course, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey, the city’s inhabitants went out to meet Him with palm branches in their hands: “Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (John 12:13) In the Millennium, all nations – Jew and gentile – will come to Jerusalem to celebrate Him with palm branches in their hands. (Revelation 7:9, Zechariah 14:16.)
It should be no surprise that both Solomon’s temple and the Millennial temple feature palm tree imagery. (See 1 Kings 6:35 & Ezekiel 40:16) And, of course, Jesus himself is our Temple.
I bet you didn’t think the Bible would have so much to say about palm trees, did you?
I didn’t at first, either.
But now whenever I drive through a street flanked by these tall, beautiful trees it makes me wonder.
Do we stand as tall as these trees in splendor and righteousness? Do we still continue to bear fruit for our Lord, even in our old age, full of sap, green, and vitality?
Does God’s word provide us rest and nourishment as Elim did to the Israelites? Or do we lean on our own understanding and only do what is right in our own eyes?
May we all strive to grow and flourish in the house of Our Lord.
I’ll bet you never look at palm trees the same. 🌴
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