En-Gedi Monthly Article   March 2007

The words of scripture are often dripping with picture and story ripe with wisdom. Sometimes we need to squeeze the text with the hands of language and culture to extract its full meaning. This month's article is a convincing example of this and calls us to ask ourselves whether the fruit we are bearing is for show, or for nourishment.

Blessings from En-Gedi

Where is the Juice?
by Lois Tverberg, August, 2001*

Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream. It will not fear when the heat comes, but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit.  Jer. 17:5-7

After reading this proverb about the cursed tree and the blessed tree, it is easy to imagine what the blessed tree must look like -- thick green leaves; branches covered in large, luscious fruit; abundant growth even when everything is dry all around. We came to a tree that fit that image perfectly on our last full day in Israel a couple weeks ago.^1 The tree I'm referring to is in the picture to the left. It was just outside the nature preserve of the En-Gedi springs, a beautiful oasis in the middle of the Judean wilderness, near the barren salt flats that surround the Dead Sea. But the remarkable thing about this beautiful tree is that it is actually the cursed tree that Jeremiah spoke about in this proverb. According to Nogah Hareuveni,^2 an expert on plants of the Bible, the Hebrew name of this plant is Ar'ar, which sounds similar to the word for cursed (arur) and is part of a wordplay which is central to this poem. Why is it called "cursed"? Because if a thirsty, hot traveler approaches the tree and picks a nice big fruit, he will find a nasty surprise. When opened, the fruit makes a "pssst" sound, and is hollow and filled with webs and dust and a dry pit. The Bedouin call this tree the "Cursed Lemon" or "Sodom Apple" because it grows in the salt lands that surround the Dead Sea where Sodom and Gomorrah once were. According to their legends, when God destroyed Sodom, He cursed the fruit of this tree also. (In reality, it is a giant milkweed bush, which has large empty seed-pods. But to the ancient people, it's fruit seemed revoltingly empty and hollow, and quite deceptive.) I first heard about this tree from Rev. Ray Vander Laan,^3 and I was captivated by the imagery both of the tree itself and what Jeremiah says about it. From studying Hebrew and being in Israel, I've seen even more depth of imagery in this poem. For instance, in Hebrew, the future tense is used in proverbs to indicate an indefinite length of time. So in Hebrew, it sounds like you say, "A stitch in time will save nine." If you assume that the future tense of the Jeremiah passage is more of the proverbial sense than we glean from the English, this is what it would sound like: Jer. 17:5 Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a bush in the desert, which does not see when prosperity comes, but lives in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant. Jer 17:7 (But) blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. For he is like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream. It doesn't fear when the heat comes, but its leaves are green, and it is not anxious in a year of drought, and doesn't cease to yield fruit. Once I started reading the poem this way, I saw it very differently. I used to think that the cursing was done by God, in order to punish a person for not trusting. But now I see this as more the natural consequence of action. When I assume that my strength comes from within myself, I am filled with worry — even when times are good I can't see the prosperity around me. All my circumstances seem negative, like a barren wasteland; and I feel lonely and weary even when friends and family are nearby. On the other hand, when I put my trust in God, I can live with relatively little anxiety even in the worst times. One couple I know had a terrible house fire that destroyed all of their possessions while they were away from home. The insurance adjuster couldn't understand why they were calm and collected, but it was because they saw that God had saved their family and was obviously taking care of them through it. They simply weren't experiencing the drought the way they would have if they didn't see God's hand surrounding them. One interesting contrast is that in the literal Hebrew the cursed person "doesn't see the coming of good" while the blessed person "doesn't fear the coming of heat." At first I thought it was odd that heat is considered a negative. But while I was at En-Gedi, my thermometer peaked at 120 degrees and I understood. In Israel, everything is dry and dead in the summertime because of the heat, and the winter is the time of growing crops. Israelis tend to look at summer in the way that Westerners look at winter - a difficult and depressing time that comes every year. And, they have a special blessing to praise God every time it rains, which gives life to their land. Think about that next time you complain about a rainy day. Another image that I got from this poem is that in some sense, the tree actually chooses where it is going to live. Does it choose to live by the river, or does it choose to live in the barren wasteland? Ironically, this arara tree grows right on the border of the salty land within sight of both the lush oasis of En-Gedi and the barren Dead Sea. It seems to be symbolic of my own life which goes back and forth between enthusiastic faith in God, and depressing cynicism about what the future may hold. I seem to choose my location day by day. Finally, from looking at the cursed tree, what really is wrong with it? Essentially, it can grow tall and get very leafy, but the big problem is that the fruit have no juice. In essence, the tree is supposed to absorb life-giving water from the soil and pass it on to others through its fruit, but this is not happening. It is as if the tree has cut itself off from the source of living water by relying on its own strength. It looks fine from the outside, but yields only empty fruit. In some sense, the fruit's juice should be "maim chaim" (living water) of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus says will pour out of the anyone who believes in Him (John 7:38). The "juice" results from a life that is filled with the refreshing presence of the Lord. Without that, our lives are empty and hollow. ^1 This article was originally published in August 2001, a month after Lois' first Hebrew class at the Biblical Hebrew Ulpan in Israel. See www.biblicalulpan.org to learn more about the class. ^2 N. Hareuveni, Desert and Shepherd in our Biblical Heritage (Tel Aviv: Neot Kedumim, 1991) pp.67-72. ^3 Thanks also go to Ray Vander Laan for this teaching. He is the author of the Faith Lessons DVD series (available from Zondervan) that teach about the land and culture of the Bible.

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