THE FORESTRY OF THE PROPHETS 



By Aldo Leopold 



Assistant District forester, U. S. Forest Service 



Who discovered forestry? The heretofore accepted claims of the 

 European nations have of late been hotly disputed by the Piutes. I 

 now beg leave to present a prior claim for the children of Israel. I 

 can hardly state that they practiced forestry, but I believe it can be 

 shown that they knew a lot about forests. (Also, if any of them set 

 fires, they knew better than to admit it.) The following notes, gleaned 

 from a purely amateur study of the Books of the Prophets of the Old 

 Testament,^ may be of interest to other foresters, and may possibly 

 suggest profitable fields of research for competent Hebraists and physi- 

 ographers. 



The most interesting side of forestry was then, as it is now, the 

 human side. There is wide difference in the woodcraft of the indi- 

 vidual prophets — the familiarity with which they speak of forests, and 

 especially the frequency with which they use similes based on forest 

 phenomena. It appears that in Judaea, as in Montana, there were 

 woodsmen and dudes. 



Isaiah was the Roosevelt of the Holy Land. He knew a whole lot 

 about everything, including forests, and told what he knew in no un- 

 certain terms. He constantly uses the forest to illustrate his teachings, 

 and in doing so calls the trees by their first names. Contrast with 

 him the sophisticated Solomon, who spoke much wisdom, but whose 

 lore was city lore — the nearest he comes to the forest is the fig tree 

 and the cedar of Lebanon, and I think he saw more of the cedars in 

 the ceiling of his palace than he did in the hills. Joel knew more about 

 forests than even Isaiah — he is the preacher of conservation of water- 

 sheds, and in a sense the real inventor of "prevent forest fires." David 

 speaks constantly and familiarly about forests and his forest similes are 

 especially accurate and beautiful. Ezekiel was not only a woodsman 

 and an artist, but he knew a good deal about the lumber business, 

 domestic and foreign. Jeremiah had a smattering of woods lore, and 



' Quotations are from Moulton's Reader's Bible, which is based on the Re- 

 vised EngHsh Version. 



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