| Easton's Bible Dictionary The fruit of the olive-tree. This tree yielded oil which was highly valued. The best oil was from olives that were plucked before being fully ripe, and then beaten or squeezed (Deuteronomy 24:20; Isaiah 17:6; 24:13). It was called "beaten," or "fresh oil" (Exodus 27:20). There were also oil-presses, in which the oil was trodden out by the feet (Micah 6:15). James (3:12) calls the fruit "olive berries." The phrase "vineyards and olives" (Judges 15:5, A.V.) should be simply "olive-yard," or "olive-garden," as in the Revised Version. (see OIL.) Noah Webster's Dictionary 1. (n.) A tree (Olea Europaea) with small oblong or elliptical leaves, auxiliary clusters of flowers, and oval, one-seeded drupes. The tree has been cultivated for its fruit for thousands of years, and its branches are the emblems of peace. The wood is yellowish brown and beautifully variegated. 2. (n.) The fruit of the olive. It has been much improved by cultivation, and is used for making pickles. Olive oil is pressed from its flesh. 3. (n.) Any shell of the genus Oliva and allied genera; -- so called from the form. See Oliva. 4. (n.) The oyster catcher. 5. (n.) The color of the olive, a peculiar dark brownish, yellowish, or tawny green. 6. (n.) One of the tertiary colors, composed of violet and green mixed in equal strength and proportion. 7. (n.) An olivary body. See under Olivary. 8. (n.) A small slice of meat seasoned, rolled up, and cooked; as, olives of beef or veal. 9. (a.) Approaching the color of the olive; of a peculiar dark brownish, yellowish, or tawny green. Int. Standard Bible Encyclopedia OLIVE TREE ol'-iv tre (zayith, a word occurring also in Aramaic, Ethiopic and Arabic; in the last it means "olive oil," and zaitun, "the olive tree"; elaia):
1. The Olive Tree:
The olive tree has all through history been one of the most characteristic, most valued and most useful of trees in Palestine. It is only right that it is the first named "king" of the trees (Judges 9:8, 9). When the children of Israel came to the land they acquired olive trees which they planted not (Deuteronomy 6:11; compare Joshua 24:13). The cultivation of the olive goes back to the earliest times in Canaan. The frequent references in the Bible, the evidences (see 4 below) from archaeology and the important place the product of this tree has held in the economy of the inhabitants of Syria make it highly probable that this land is the actual home of the cultivated olive. The wild olive is indigenous there. The most fruitful trees are the product of bare and rocky ground (compare Deuteronomy 32:13) situated preferably at no great distance from the sea. The terraced hills of Palestine, where the earth lies never many inches above the limestone rocks, the long rainless summer of unbroken sunshine, and the heavy "clews" of the autumn afford conditions which are extraordinarily favorable to at least the indigenous olive.
The olive, Olea Europaea (Natural Order Oleaceae), is a slow-growing tree, requiring years of patient labor before reaching full fruitfulness. Its growth implies a certain degree of settlement and peace, for a hostile army can in a few days destroy the patient work of two generations. Possibly this may have something to do with its being the emblem of peace. Enemies of a village or of an individual often today carry out revenge by cutting away a ring of bark from the trunks of the olives, thus killing the trees in a few months. The beauty of this tree is referred to in Jeremiah 11:16 Hosea 14:6, and its fruitfulness in Psalm 128:3. The characteristic olive-green of its foliage, frosted silver below and the twisted and gnarled trunks-often hollow in the center-are some of the most picturesque and constant signs of settled habitations. In some parts of the land large plantations occur: the famous olive grove near Beirut is 5 miles square; there are also fine, ancient trees in great numbers near Bethlehem.
In starting an oliveyard the fellah not infrequently plants young wild olive trees which grow plentifully over many parts of the land, or he may grow from cuttings. When the young trees are 3 years old they are grafted from a choice stock and after another three or four years they may commence to bear fruit, but they take quite a decade more before reaching full fruition. Much attention is, however, required. The soil around the trees must be frequently plowed and broken up; water must be conducted to the roots from the earliest rain, and the soil must be freely enriched with a kind of marl known in Arabic as chuwwarah. If neglected, the older trees soon send up a great many shoots from the roots all around the parent stem (perhaps the idea in Psalm 128:3); these must be pruned away, although, should the parent stem decay, some of these may be capable of taking its place. Being, however, from the root, below the original point of grafting, they are of the wild olive type-with smaller, stiffer leaves and prickly stem-and need grafting before they are of use. The olive tree furnishes a wood valuable for many forms of carpentry, and in modern Palestine is extensively burnt as fuel.
2. The Fruit:
The olive is in flower about May; it produces clusters of small white flowers, springing from the axils of the leaves, which fall as showers to the ground (Job 15:33). The first olives mature as early as September in some places, but, in the mountain districts, the olive harvest is not till November or even December. Much of the earliest fruit falls to the ground and is left by the owner ungathered until the harvest. The trees are beaten with long sticks (Deuteronomy 24:20), the young folks often climbing into the branches to reach the highest fruit, while the women and older girls gather up the fruit from the ground. The immature fruit left after such an ingathering is described graphically in Isaiah 17:6: "There shall be left therein gleanings, as the shaking (margin "beating") of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost branches of a fruitful tree." Such gleanings belonged to the poor (Deuteronomy 24:20), as is the case today. Modern villages in Palestine allow the poor of even neighboring villages to glean the olives. The yield of an olive tree is very uncertain; a year of great fruitfulness may be followed by a very scanty crop or by a succession of such.
The olive is an important article of diet in Palestine. Some are gathered green and pickled in brine, after slight bruising, and others, the "black" olives, are gathered quite ripe and are either packed in salt or in brine. In both cases the salt modifies the bitter taste. They are eaten with bread.
More important commercially is the oil. This is sometimes extracted in a primitive way by crushing a few berries by hand in the hollow of a stone (compare Exodus 27:20), from which a shallow channel runs for the oil. It is an old custom to tread them by foot (Micah 6:15).
3. Olive Oil:
Oil is obtained on a larger scale in one of the many varieties of oil mills. The berries are carried in baskets, by donkeys, to the mill, and they are crushed by heavy weights. A better class of oil can be obtained by collecting the first oil to come off separately, but not much attention is given to this in Palestine, and usually the berries are crushed, stones and all, by a circular millstone revolving upright round a central pivot. A plenteous harvest of oil was looked upon as one of God's blessings (Joel 2:24; Joel 3:13). That the "labor of the olive" should fail was one of the trials to faith in Yahweh (Habakkuk 3:17). Olive oil is extensively used as food, morsels of bread being dipped into it in eating; also medicinally (Luke 10:34 James 5:14). In ancient times it was greatly used for anointing the person (Psalm 23:5 Matthew 6:17). In Rome's days of luxury it was a common maxim that a long and pleasant life depended upon two fiuids-"wine within and oil without." In modern times this use of oil for the person is replaced by the employment of soap, which in Palestine is made from olive oil. In all ages this oil has been used for illumination (Matthew 25:3).
4. Greater Plenty of Olive Trees in Ancient Times:
Comparatively plentiful as olive trees are today in Palestine, there is abundant evidence that the cultivation was once much more extensive. "The countless rock-cut oil-presses and wine-presses, both within and without the walls of the city (of Gezer), show that the cultivation of the olive and vine was of much greater importance than it is anywhere in Palestine today..... Excessive taxation has made olive culture unprofitable" ("Gezer Mem," PEF, II, 23). A further evidence of this is seen today in many now deserted sites which are covered with wild olive trees, descendants of large plantations of the cultivated tree which have quite disappeared.
5. Wild Olives:
Many of these spring from the old roots; others are from the fallen drupes. Isolated trees scattered over many parts of the land, especially in Galilee, are sown by the birds. As a rule the wild olive is but a shrub, with small leaves, a stem more or less prickly, and a small, hard drupe with but little or no oil. That a wild olive branch should be grafted into a fruitful tree would be a proceeding useless and contrary to Nature (Romans 11:17, 24). On the mention of "branches of wild olive" in Nehemiah 8:15, see OIL TREE.
E. W. G. Masterman OLIVE, WILD Figuratively used in Romans 11:17, 24 for the Gentiles, grafted into "the good olive tree" of Israel.
See OLIVE TREE. OIL, OLIVE See OIL; OLIVE TREE. OLIVE See OLIVE TREE. OLIVE BERRIES ber'-iz.
See OLIVE TREE. OLIVE YARD ol'-iv yard.
See OLIVE TREE. OLIVE, GRAFTED See OLIVE TREE. |  | Multi-Version Concordance Olive (61 Occurrences) Luke 16:6 He said,'A hundred batos of oil.' He said to him,'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.' (See NIV) John 18:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. (See NIV) John 18:26 One of the servants of the high priest, being a relative of him whose ear Peter had cut off, said, "Didn't I see you in the garden with him?" (See NIV) Romans 11:17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree; (WEB KJV WEY ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Romans 11:24 For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? (WEB KJV WEY ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) James 3:12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, yield olives, or a vine figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh water. (Root in WEB KJV WEY ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Revelation 11:4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands, standing before the Lord of the earth. (WEB KJV WEY ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Revelation 18:13 and cinnamon, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, sheep, horses, chariots, and people's bodies and souls. (WEB NAS NIV) Genesis 8:11 The dove came back to him at evening, and, behold, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. So Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Exodus 23:11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field shall eat. In like manner you shall deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Exodus 27:20 "You shall command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Exodus 30:24 and of cassia five hundred, after the shekel of the sanctuary; and a hin of olive oil. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Exodus 35:28 and the spice, and the oil for the light, for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense. (See NIV) Leviticus 24:2 "Command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Numbers 11:8 The people went around, gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made cakes of it. Its taste was like the taste of fresh oil. (See NIV) Numbers 18:12 "All the best of the oil, and all the best of the vintage, and of the grain, the first fruits of them which they give to Yahweh, to you have I given them. (See NIV) Deuteronomy 6:11 and houses full of all good things, which you didn't fill, and cisterns dug out, which you didn't dig, vineyards and olive trees, which you didn't plant, and you shall eat and be full; (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Deuteronomy 8:8 a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey; (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Deuteronomy 24:20 When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Deuteronomy 28:40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olive shall cast its fruit. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Joshua 24:13 I gave you a land whereon you had not labored, and cities which you didn't build, and you live in them. You eat of vineyards and olive groves which you didn't plant.' (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Judges 9:8 The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said to the olive tree,'Reign over us.' (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Judges 9:9 "But the olive tree said to them,'Should I leave my fatness, with which by me they honor God and man, and go to wave back and forth over the trees?' (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Judges 15:5 When he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing grain, and also the olive groves. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT RSV NIV) 1 Samuel 8:14 He will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive groves, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) 1 Kings 5:11 Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil. Solomon gave this to Hiram year by year. (See NIV) 1 Kings 6:23 In the oracle he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS NAS RSV NIV) 1 Kings 6:31 For the entrance of the oracle he made doors of olive wood: the lintel and door posts were a fifth part of the wall. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS NAS RSV NIV) 1 Kings 6:32 So he made two doors of olive wood; and he carved on them carvings of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and he spread the gold on the cherubim, and on the palm trees. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS NAS RSV NIV) 1 Kings 6:33 So also made he for the entrance of the temple door posts of olive wood, out of a fourth part of the wall; (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS NAS RSV NIV) 2 Kings 5:26 He said to him, "Didn't my heart go with you, when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and olive groves and vineyards, and sheep and cattle, and male servants and female servants? (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) 2 Kings 18:32 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and of honey, that you may live, and not die. Don't listen to Hezekiah, when he persuades you, saying, "Yahweh will deliver us." (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) 1 Chronicles 27:28 and over the olive trees and the sycamore trees that were in the lowland was Baal Hanan the Gederite: and over the cellars of oil was Joash: (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) 2 Chronicles 2:10 Behold, I will give to your servants, the cutters who cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil. (See NIV) 2 Chronicles 2:15 Now therefore the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine, which my lord has spoken of, let him send to his servants: (See NIV) 2 Chronicles 11:11 He fortified the strongholds, and put captains in them, and stores of food, and oil and wine. (See NIV) Ezra 7:22 to one hundred talents of silver, and to one hundred measures of wheat, and to one hundred baths of wine, and to one hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. (See NIV) Nehemiah 5:11 Please restore to them, even this day, their fields, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the grain, the new wine, and the oil, that you exact of them. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Nehemiah 8:15 and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth to the mountain, and get olive branches, and branches of wild olive, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Nehemiah 9:25 They took fortified cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, and olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance: so they ate, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Job 15:33 He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive tree. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Job 24:11 Between the lines of olive-trees they make oil; though they have no drink, they are crushing out the grapes. (BBE RSV NIV) Job 29:6 when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out streams of oil for me, (See NIV) Psalms 52:8 But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in God's house. I trust in God's loving kindness forever and ever. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Psalms 128:3 Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants, around your table. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Isaiah 17:6 Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree," says Yahweh, the God of Israel. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Isaiah 24:13 For it will be so in the midst of the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Isaiah 41:19 I will put in the waste land the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive-tree; and in the lowland will be planted the fir-tree, the plane, and the cypress together: (BBE NAS RSV NIV) Isaiah 57:9 And you went to Melech with oil and much perfume, and you sent your representatives far off, and went as low as the underworld. (See NIV) Jeremiah 11:16 Yahweh called your name, A green olive tree, beautiful with goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Ezekiel 16:13 Thus you were decked with gold and silver; and your clothing was of fine linen, and silk, and embroidered work; you ate fine flour, and honey, and oil; and you were exceeding beautiful, and you prospered to royal estate. (See NIV) Ezekiel 16:19 My bread also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey, with which I fed you, you even set it before them for a pleasant aroma; and thus it was, says the Lord Yahweh. (See NIV) Hosea 12:1 Ephraim feeds on wind, and chases the east wind. He continually multiplies lies and desolation. They make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt. (See NIV) Hosea 14:6 His branches will spread, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Amos 4:9 "I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and your fig trees and your olive trees have the swarming locust devoured: yet you haven't returned to me," says Yahweh. (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Micah 6:15 You will sow, but won't reap. You will tread the olives, but won't anoint yourself with oil; and crush grapes, but won't drink the wine. (Root in WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Habakkuk 3:17 For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Haggai 2:19 Is the seed yet in the barn? Yes, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree haven't brought forth. From this day will I bless you.'" (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Zechariah 4:3 and two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl, and the other on the left side of it." (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Zechariah 4:11 Then I asked him, "What are these two olive trees on the right side of the lampstand and on the left side of it?" (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Zechariah 4:12 I asked him the second time, "What are these two olive branches, which are beside the two golden spouts, that pour the golden oil out of themselves?" (WEB KJV JPS ASV BBE DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) |
