Palm trees in ancient desert sands grew and satisfied almost every need the ancient Jews needed. The Jews ate the palm tree dates; the tree juices were fermented into wine; the trunk of the palm tree was used as construction timber; and the palm leaves were woven into baskets, mats, brooms, beds, ropes and made into furniture.

Promises were made in the Hebrew Bible by God for a new home for the nation of Israel , and the moving finger on the wall pointed to the palm tree as the perfect supplier of food, shelter and medicine. This was the promised land of “milk and honey, (palm dates.)” the land of Canaan located on the banks of the Jordan River.

Ezekiel 47-12: “All kinds of fruit trees will grow along the river banks, the leaves will never turn brown and fall, and there will always be fruit. There will be a new crop every month- without fail! For they are watered by the river flowing from the Temple. The fruit will be for food and the leaves for medicine.”

Date palm trees grow tall point toward the infinite heavens where there is a promise of Life Eternal. The symbolism of the straight trunk of the palm tree is clear; that humans should journey down the straight path that leads Christians toward righteousness. The straight soft trunk was capped with a canopy of 20 foot leaves of green that unfolded like a botanical star burst. The delicious honey-sweet dates fed the ancient Jewish nomads and the eventual settlers of Israel. The palm leaves shaded the hot, bright desert sands and the fibers provided a plethora of uses in the primitive lands.

The ancient date palm tree, it has been suggested, is the oldest fruit bearing tree on earth. Palm trees grow worldwide from sandy deserts to tropical rain forests. The palm trees has been grown in grove plantings, since the ancients understood the food value of the dates and the exotic appearance and shading on the landscape of the desert sands. Palm trees were often planted near an oasis as a source of water, shade and food.

Historically the tropical appearance of palm trees was noted in ancient documents, and on stone inscriptions uncovered by archaeological excavations and from multiple references in the Bible Scriptures. Ancient civilizations revered palm trees as symbols of fertility, peace, and victory. Palm tree images were struck and minted on ageless coins of the Greeks and Romans. The trees were an economic resource for the exporting of high quality, edible dates into areas outside the Middle East and Africa.

In the Scriptures of the Hebrew Bible, Joshua 6-20, the brother of Moses, Joshua, stood at the miraculous crumbled walls at the city of Jericho, “the City of Palms”, that was situated in the land of the Canaanites, located along the Mediterranean Coast. All these coastal lands of Phoenecia were the land of the palms where the Philistines lived, the legendary enemies of Israel, which is today named, Beirut, Lebanon, and Phoenicia was abundantly covered with palm trees. So the land of the palm trees was also the land, where in addition the to the productive crops of dates, grape vineyards grew there, and groves of fig trees, olive trees and pomegranate trees thrived. The Greeks were reported to have carved their magnificent fluted columns of marble to memorialize the shape of the trunk of a palm tree.

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