OF FOREST-TREES. 



203 



Joseplius, that in the palace of Macherus, there was growing a plant of CHAP. 

 Rue, equal for height and thickness to any Fig-tree ; it was still remain- ^^^""^ 

 ing in the time of Herod, and would have stood longer, had not the Jews 

 cut it down. Jos. Antiq. Bell. Jub. lib. vii. cap. vi. How these, and 

 indeed all other vegetables, differ in the north from those of the south, 

 growing on the same mountain, Monsieur Brenier has shewn us ; 



and conjectures, which it is no part of our business to retail. The following remarks, perhaps, 

 may incline the reader to think that the Hyssop of Judaea, that is, azoub, was not the same 

 with our Hyssop, or, however, of a much superior growth, and therefore that the /taXa,uo? 

 of St. Matthew (">), and the iia-a-omi of St. John, may be the same. 



The Jews reckon four, Kimchi says seven, species of Hyssop. It appears froifl the 

 Talmud, that Hyssop was gathered not only for the use of the table, but also for wood ; 

 i. e. I suppose, they used it for fuel, as the Egyptians did the reed and the papyrus ('): 

 it is mentioned also among the reeds and boughs, with which the Jews covered their 

 booths at the feast of Tabernacles. — In the 1 Kings, iv. 33, Hyssop of one species, though 

 it stands opposed to the Cedar of Lebanon, appears to have been classed by Solomon 

 among Irees. It is no objection to this remark, that it is called the Hyssop that springelk out 

 of the wall; for the original might, with equal justice, have been rendered, that growelh 

 AGAINST or BY the wall ; and, perhaps, that growelh upon ruins, viz. out of the rubbish ; or, 

 that grotveth upon or by the ramparts, viz. of Jerusalem, or any other city, that is, of which 

 there is abundance without the walls of the city, or which is known to grow in such situations. 

 It is true that the word, which is here translated trees, appears, from a passage in the book 

 of Joshua (■*), to comprehend under it the stalks of jiax : in this, however, there is nothing 

 inconsistent with the opinion that the Hyssop of the wall was an arborescent plant, holding, 

 according to Solomon's arrangement, the lowest place in that class, of which the Cedar 

 of Lebanon held the highest : for why may not the flax of Palestine have been as much a 

 tree, as the mustard of it was } However, if any thing that was called Hyssop in the East, 

 was of a growth as great only as that of our flax, St. John's vcra>ancoi may be the same with 

 the KSiXa/Ao? of St. Matthew • for it might afford a stalk of length and strength sufficient to 

 raise the sponge to the mouth of a person hanging on the cross. But there is reason to 

 believe jnore than this concerning the Hyssop of the wall; for if it had not been a tree properly 

 so called, the seventy («), and Josephus C), who could not but be acquainted with the 

 ordinary productions of their own country, in translating this passage, could never have 

 rendered by the terms ^vXov and deydpav, that Hebrew word Otz, that comprehends both the 

 Cedar and the Hyssop. To this we may add, that Isaac Ben Omram (s), according to Bochart's 



b Matt. xxvi. 48 c Ulpian in Digest, lib. xxxii. leg. 55. sect. 5. Ed. Amst. Corporis juris civilis 1700, 



p. 573. vol. 1 <• Joshua ii. 6. e Greek version of 1 Kings iv. xxxiii f Joseph. Antiq. Jub. lib. viii. 



cap. 2. sect. 5. p. 419. 1 vol. Ed, Haverc. S Bochart. Hierozoicon. \ ?, lib. ii. cap. 50. p. 590. 



