Pinetree
Pine-tree
The word "pine" occurs in our translation three times, but in neither case is the pine of our northern regions referred to in the original. The first instance is in Ne 8:15 (Sept. ξύλον κυπαρίσσινον. Vulg. lignum pulcherrimum), where the Hebrew wordsעֵוֹ שֶׁמֶן, ets shemen, are rendered "pine-branches." though the phrase is generally understood to denote the wild olive-tree. SEE OLIVE. The second and third instances are in Isa 41:19 (Sept. πεύκη, Vulg. pinus) and 60:13 (Sept. βραθυδαάρ, Vulg. ulmus), where the Hebrew word is תַּדּהָר, tidhar, which Gesenius conjectures to denote the oak (from its hardness and durability, root, דָּהִר); but the old translators waver between beech, pine, cypress, larch, etc., and by modern interpreters it has been variously explained to be the Indian plane, the larch, and the elm (Celsius, Hierob. 2, 271). SEE ASH-TREE; SEE BOX-TREE; SEE CEDAR-TREE. The Sept. rendering in Isa 41:19, βραθυδαάρ, appears to have arisen from a confused amalgamation of the words berosh and tidhar, which follow each other in that passage. Of these berosh is sometimes rendered "cypress," and might stand for "juniper." That species of juniper which is called savin is in Greek βραθύ. The word δαάρ is merely an expression in Greek letters for tidhar (Pliny, 24:11, 61; Schleusner, s.v.; Celsius, Hierob. 1, 78). In the Chaldee paraphrase the word murneyan, commonly thought to mean the elm, is used as the synonym of tidhar. But no similar name having been discovered in any of the cognate languages, no proofs can be adduced in favor of one more than another. The name tidhara, meaning "three-cornered," is applied in India to a species of Euphorbia (E. antiquoum); but this is not likely to be the plant alluded to in Scripture. But the rendering "pine" seems least probable of any, as the root implies either curvature or duration, of which the latter is not particularly applicable to the pine, and the former remarkably otherwise. On the other hand, Thomson (Land and Book, 2, 266 sq.) supposes that berôsh (בּרוֹשׁ) ought to be rendered pine instead of fir, as usual in the A. V.; referring it to the "stone-pine," which still covers the sandy ridges of Lebanon and Hermon, and is called snubar by the Arabs. SEE FIR.
