FORESTRY OF THE PROPHETS 417 



anquin was also made of cedar. Here is his own description of it, as 

 taken from the Song of Songs (3-9) : "King Solomon made himself a 

 palanquin of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of 

 silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the seat of it of purple, the midst 

 thereof being inlaid with love from the daughters of Jerusalem." (I 

 doubt whether Solomon "made himself" this palanquin. He does not 

 give the impression of a man handy with tools. No doubt he had it 

 made by the most cunning artificers of his kingdom.) 



Cedar construction in Biblical days seems to have been a kind of 

 mark of social distinction, as mahogany is today. (Witness also the 

 marble-topped walnut of our Victorian forbears!) Solomon's bride 

 boasts (Song of Songs, 1-1 G) : "Our couch is green. The beams of 

 our house are cedars, and our rafters are firs." Jeremiah (33-14) 

 accuses Jehoiakim of building with ill-gotten gains "a wide house 

 . . . with windows . . . ceiled with cedar, and painted with 

 Vermillion." "Shalt thou reign," exclaims Jeremiah, "because thou 

 strivest to creel in eedar?" 



The cedar seems to have grown to large size. Ezekiel, in a parable 

 (31), says of one tree: "The cedars in the garden of God could not 

 hide him ; the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the plane trees were 

 not as his branches." This cedar was Pharaoh, and the Lord "made 

 the nations to shake at the sound of his fall." 



The close utilization which seems to have been practiced at least in 

 some localities, the apparently well developed timber trade of the coast 

 cities, and the great number of references to the use and commerce in 

 cedar, would lead to the surmise that the pinch of local timber famine 

 might have been felt in the cedar woods. That this was actually the 

 case is indicated by Isaiah (14-7). After prophesying the fall of 

 Babylon, he tells how all things will rejoice over her demise. "Yea, 

 the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon: 'Since thou 

 art laid down, no feller is come up against us.' " This impersonization 

 of trees is characteristic of the Biblical writers; David (Psalms, 96) 

 says, "Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy." 



The relative durability of woods was of course fairly well known. 

 Isaiah (9-10) says: "The bricks are fallen, but we will build with 

 hewn stone; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them 

 into cedars." Ecclesiasticus (12-13) likens the permanency and 

 strength of wisdom to "a cedar in Libanus, and ... a cypress 

 tree on the mountains of Hermon," 



