Plants as Biblical Metaphors

020

For our ancestors, wild plants and animals of the Holy Land served as symbols and metaphors. These people were closer to nature than we are today and they understood the life cycles of the plants and animals about them. In the Bible, they used this knowledge in a poetic way.

The scholars who translated the Bible into Latin and English often failed to grasp the full meaning of these plant and animal metaphors. The plant life of Europe and America is far different from the Middle East and, as a result, they did not understand the significance of these references to nature.

In this article, I shall try to deepen our understanding of two Biblical passages through an understanding of the life cycle of a plant referred to in the Bible as galgal.

“O my God,” implores the Psalmist, “scatter [thy enemies] like galgal before the wind” (Psalm 83:14). The King James translation renders galgal as “stubble.” The Revised Standard Version says “whirling dust”; the New English Bible translates the word “thistledown.” Stubble is stumps left in the field after the harvest. “Whirling dust” is perhaps more appropriate to an English townhouse than to ancient Israel. “Thistledown” comes closest. But only by understanding the plant’s life cycle can we truly appreciate the simile.

Galgal in the modern Hebrew binomial system of plant taxonomy is called “Akuvit ha-galgal.” This name combines the Talmudic name for the plant (akkub), which survives in the modern Arabic name for the plant, with the Biblical one-word name.

The Latin name is Gundelia tournefortii L. Popularly it is known as tumbleweed.

Galgal is a thorny plant, a member of the Aster family (Asteracea or Compositae). The galgal is inactive during the dry summer months. After the first winter rain, a rosette of leaves develops out of the thick perennial root. (The soft white part of the young leaves, the part between the root and the soil surface, is used by Bedouin and Arabs to make highly-prized akkub soup.) The flower clusters, or inflorescences, develop during the late winter and early spring. From the flowers, the fruit with its seeds develops. Then the whole plant dies—part of the process by which the seeds are dispersed. The stem leaves have a stiff blade and veins; these leaves look like wings facing in every direction. The whole plant is round—so that it can roll like a ball. When the seeds of the dead fruit are ready to be dispersed, the base of the stem is disconnected from the thick root by means of an especially weak tissue which develops at just the right time. The plant then rolls, driven by the wind, dispersing its seeds on steppe and field. (Galgal also means wheel in Hebrew; the plant’s name probably derived from its habit of rolling across the fields like a wheel.)

Just before the round plant disconnects from the root, the plant appears frightening indeed—full of thistles and strong and stable looking. In fact the base of the plant is extremely weak and the whole plant can be easily driven by the wind. The sound of dry galgal plants rolling with the wind is a memorable experience to those who live amid these plants.

By the metaphor of galgal, the Psalmist is asking the Lord to make Israel’s enemies like galgal: although they look frightening, their base is weak. The whole plant can be driven by the wind and it will be gone.

Galgal is also used in Isaiah 17:13:

“The nations roar like the roaring of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will fly far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind and like a rolling thing before the storm.”

The “rolling thing” (“whirling dust” in the Revised Standard Version) is galgal. A “rolling thing” is only part of the meaning of the word. The prophet is really forecasting the destruction of the Assyrian empire—a frightening enemy, but with a weak base that may easily be blown away by the wind of the Lord.

For our ancestors, wild plants and animals of the Holy Land served as symbols and metaphors. These people were closer to nature than we are today and they understood the life cycles of the plants and animals about them. In the Bible, they used this knowledge in a poetic way. The scholars who translated the Bible into Latin and English often failed to grasp the full meaning of these plant and animal metaphors. The plant life of Europe and America is far different from the Middle East and, as a result, they did not understand the significance of these […]