Genesis 2 · Symbol · Featured Study
The Tree
The tree runs from two in a garden to one in a city street, with the cross between them.
The Bible's word for a tree is also its word for the wood a body was hung on.
- The word
- עֵץ (ʿēṣ), H6086
- First appears
- Genesis 2:9 “…God gave growth to every tree that is…”
Pacino di Bonaguida, Tree of Life, 1305 to 1310. Public domain.
Summary
The apostles called the cross a tree, and the word joins the garden of Genesis, the law of Deuteronomy and the city of Revelation.
- Peter uses the word in Acts 5:30, Acts 10:39 and 1 Peter 2:24, and Paul in Acts 13:29 and Galatians 3:13.
- Paul applies the law of the hanged man in Deuteronomy 21:23 to Christ (Galatians 3:13).
- Scripture never says the cross was made from Eden's tree, and it never calls the cross the tree of life.
A Tree of Life and a Tree of Curse
Genesis 2, Psalm 1 and Deuteronomy 21 use the one noun in two directions.
A tree is the Bible's picture of a life that lasts, rooted by water and green in every season.
Deuteronomy 21 turns the tree the other way, from a picture of life to a sign of a curse.
When the apostles wanted a word for the thing Jesus was nailed to, they chose xylon, the Greek word for wood and for a tree.
And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”God gives the man every tree of the garden but one, and names the death that follows from that one.
you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.Paul quotes this verse of the cross in his letter to the Galatians.
Five verses where a tree pictures a lifePsalm 1, Proverbs 11, 13 and 15, and Jeremiah 17
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.Scripture itself compares a person to a tree, and Jeremiah 17:8 repeats the comparison.
Proverbs calls four things a tree of life: wisdom, the fruit of the righteous, desire fulfilled and a soothing tongue.
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.The righteous man's fruit is the second tree of life in Proverbs.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.A hope met at last is the third.
A soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.Gentle speech is the fourth.
But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit.Jeremiah repeats the picture of Psalm 1.
The Cross Painted as a Tree
Pacino di Bonaguida's panel of about 1310, in the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence.
The garden stands at the foot of the tree and the court of heaven at its crown.
- The trees of the gardenAt the left foot of the panel Adam and Eve stand among small trees.Genesis 2:9
- The way to the tree guardedAt the right foot an angel drives the man and the woman out.Genesis 3:24
- The trunkThe upright of the cross is the trunk of the tree.Deuteronomy 21:23
- Christ on the treeChrist hangs on the cross where the branches spread.Galatians 3:13
- The branchesTwelve scrolled branches spread, six on each side, and each carries painted scenes.Revelation 22:2
- The pelicanA pelican sits on a nest at the top of the trunk.1 Peter 2:24
- The court of heavenTwo figures sit enthroned above rows of saints and angels in the gable.Revelation 22:3
Pacino di Bonaguida, Tree of Life, 1305 to 1310. Public domain.
Seven parts of the panel, each numbered where it stands, with the verse the part answers to.
The Tree Through Scripture
Eleven places in canon order, from the garden to the city.
The 2 texts in canon order.
1Peter and Paul preach the same word
- Acts 10:39
- Genesis 22:6
Each station opens its verse page.
The word runs from two trees in a garden to one tree in a city street.
- Genesis 2:9the trees God made to grow, with two set in the middle of the garden
- Genesis 3:6the first wrong act in the Bible done at a tree
- Genesis 3:22 to 24the road to the tree of life guarded, and the tree left standing
- Deuteronomy 21:22 to 23the post a dead criminal is hung on, under God's curse
- Psalm 1:3a man who keeps God's law compared to a tree by water
- Proverbs 3:18the phrase of Genesis 2:9 given to wisdom
- Luke 23:31the green tree and the dry, spoken to the women of Jerusalem
- Acts 5:30Peter before the council says tree where we say cross
- Galatians 3:13Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21:23 of the crucifixion
- 1 Peter 2:24He bore our sins in His body on the tree
- Revelation 22:2the tree of life back in a city street with no guard named, its leaves for the healing of the nations
Three of the places, Acts 5:30, Galatians 3:13 and 1 Peter 2:24, call the cross a tree in their own words.
John Wesley on the law of the hanged manExplanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765
John Wesley reads Deuteronomy 21:23 as a law of shame and burial, before any Christian use of it. He writes that the hanged man is punished with a most shameful kind of punishment, and that lying unburied is not to be added to it.
Peter and Paul preach the same wordActs 10:39 and Acts 13:29
Peter says it a second time in the house of Cornelius, and Paul says it in the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia. With Galatians 3:13 and 1 Peter 2:24 that makes five uses by two apostles, a settled way of speaking in the early church.
We are witnesses of all that He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. And although they put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree,Peter speaks of the tree in a Gentile house.
When they had carried out all that was written about Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb.Paul speaks of the tree in a synagogue.
The wood Isaac carriedGenesis 22:6
The wood of Genesis 22:6 is the same word, ʿēṣ. The Binding of Isaac is taught on its own page.
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac. He himself carried the fire and the sacrificial knife, and the two of them walked on together.The son carries the wood of the offering up the mountain.
Another word for growthIsaiah 11:1
The shoot, the root and the stump of Jesse in Isaiah 11 are other words with other work, taught on The Branch and the King.
What Scripture Says and What Readers Have Heard
Two verses state what the tree of life means, and three readings come from the church's teachers.
WISDOM A TREE OF LIFE
Proverbs names wisdom a tree of life.
THE RIGHT TO THE TREE
The right to the tree of life is the reward of those who wash their robes.
Eden's tree and the cross as a pairGregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29
Gregory of Nazianzus, in his Oration 29, sets the tree He was nailed to against the tree of life, by which He restores us, in one clause.
The tree of Psalm 1 as the tree of paradiseAmbrose of Milan
Ambrose of Milan, in his Commentaries on the Twelve Davidic Psalms, reads the blessed tree of Psalm 1:3 as the tree of life in the midst of paradise.
The virtues as trees, and the garden behind ProverbsOrigen, Adam Clarke, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown
Origen, in his Homilies on Leviticus, takes Proverbs 3:18 to mean that the other virtues are trees as well. Adam Clarke and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the verse as an allusion to the tree God planted in the garden.
One Word, Several Jobs
The Hebrew noun of the Old Testament and its Greek partner in the New.
The Hebrew עֵץ ʿēṣ (H6086) stands 328 times in the Old Testament. Strong defines it as a tree and hence wood, and the King James Version renders it gallows among other words.
Its Greek partner ξύλον xylon (G3586) stands 20 times in the New Testament, and Strong defines it as timber, a stick, a club or a tree.
Three senses of xylon take five uses each.
The five counts as a table
| What xylon names | Uses | Verse |
|---|---|---|
| The cross | 5 | Acts 5:30 |
| The tree of life | 5 | Revelation 22:2 |
| Clubs at the arrest | 5 | Matthew 26:55 |
| Babylon's timber | 2 | Revelation 18:12 |
| One use each | 3 | Luke 23:31 |
Each bar counts the uses by what the word names there, read from zero; the last bar joins a saying of Jesus, the stocks and building wood.
All twenty uses of xylonseven groups, twenty uses
The five verses on the clubs are one plural noun in five verses of three Gospels, all on a single arrest. The totals depend on how the senses are grouped, so the tally shows the range of one ordinary word and argues nothing.
Every verse where xylon stands, grouped by what it names.
| What xylon names | Verses | Uses |
|---|---|---|
| The cross Jesus died on | Acts 5:30, Acts 10:39, Acts 13:29, Galatians 3:13, 1 Peter 2:24 | 5 |
| The tree of life | Revelation 2:7, Revelation 22:2 (twice), Revelation 22:14, Revelation 22:19 | 5 |
| Clubs, in the hands of the crowd that came to arrest Him | Matthew 26:47, Matthew 26:55, Mark 14:43, Mark 14:48, Luke 22:52 | 5 |
| Jesus' own use: the green tree and the dry | Luke 23:31 | 1 |
| The stocks Paul and Silas' feet were fastened in | Acts 16:24 | 1 |
| Wood as a building material | 1 Corinthians 3:12 | 1 |
| Timber on Babylon's cargo manifest | Revelation 18:12 (twice) | 2 |
The tree of life in Revelation's own wordsRevelation 2:7, Revelation 22:14 and Revelation 22:19
Besides Revelation 22:2 and the promise of Revelation 22:14, two verses of Revelation name the tree of life.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to eat from the tree of life in the Paradise of God.The first promise to the overcomer, made to Ephesus, is the right to eat from the tree.
And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and the holy city, which are described in this book.The warning that ends the book takes away a share in the tree.
The plain uses of the wordClubs, stocks, timber and cargo
In ordinary Greek the word means wood, and these four verses show it doing ordinary work. That is why the apostles' use of it for the cross stands out.
At that time Jesus said to the crowd, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me as you would an outlaw? Every day I sat teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest Me.The mob's clubs are the same noun, hours before the cross.
On receiving this order, he placed them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.The stocks are a prison timber with holes in it.
If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,Here the word is a plain material, set among metals and straw.
cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; of fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet; of all kinds of citron wood and every article of ivory, precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble;Citron wood is a trade good on a merchant's list.
Where Scripture Is Silent
Seven things the text does not say about the trees.
Scripture names the trees and leaves their fruit, their wood and their link unstated.
| What Scripture does not say | What the verse does say |
|---|---|
| The name of the fruit | Genesis 3:6 says only the tree. |
| The wood of the cross | John 19:17 says only that Jesus carried His own cross; the legends of its wood are medieval. |
| The kind of the two trees | Genesis 2:17 gives a command and a consequence. |
| That Revelation's tree is Eden's | Revelation repeats the phrase; the identification is the reader's. |
| That Deuteronomy 21 is a prophecy | It is a burial law, and Paul applies it. |
| That the tree of life was destroyed | Genesis 3 says only that the way to it was guarded. |
| That the cross is the tree of life | The cross and the tree of life are each called a tree five times; the link between them is the church's. |
Why He Died on a Tree
Deuteronomy 21:23 and Galatians 3:13 on the manner of the death.
Athanasius, the fourth-century bishop of Alexandria, asked in On the Incarnation of the Word why the Lord's death came by the cross and by no other means. He answered from Deuteronomy that to bear the curse, He had to die the death the law calls cursed.
Tertullian, in Of Patience, puts the difficulty in one sentence: the law pronounced the Lord cursed, and yet He is the only Blessed One. Paul says how both are true, and the doctrine of that exchange is argued on Justification by Faith.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”Paul introduces the law with the words it is written.
Voices on the Tree
Polycarp of Smyrna, writing to the church at Philippi about 155.
died 155 · Polycarp of Smyrna
Epistle to the Philippians 8
The tree in a letter to Philippi
The quotation1 quotation, 1 paragraph
Polycarp of Smyrna repeats Peter's sentence on the tree as the church's ordinary speech and does not explain it.
“Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, ‘who bore our sins in His own body on the tree,’ ‘who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth,’ but endured all things for us, that we might live in Him. Let us then be imitators of His patience; and if we suffer for His name's sake, let us glorify Him. For He has set us this example in Himself, and we have believed that such is the case.”
Polycarp of Smyrna · Epistle to the Philippians 8 · on 1 Peter 2:21Patristic
Open Questions
The apostles' choice of word, the trees of the last city, and the knowledge the garden's tree gave.
Whether the apostles chose xylon to call Deuteronomy 21:23 to mind is not settled by the text. Paul quotes the law at Galatians 3:13 with the words it is written, while Acts uses the word without the quotation.
Revelation 22:2 means many treesJohn Wesley, Adam Clarke, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), writes that it is not one tree only but many. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, takes the singular to stand for the plural because the tree stands on each side of the river. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read Ezekiel 47:12 back onto the verse and find several trees of the one kind.
Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of all kinds will grow. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. Each month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will be used for food and their leaves for healing.”Ezekiel's river has trees of every kind on both banks, the verse Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read beside Revelation.
The objection: the Greek noun of Revelation 22:2 is singular.
The trees of Revelation 22 are the saintsAndreas of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse
Andreas of Caesarea, in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, reads the trees as the saints planted by the river, who share in Him who is the Tree of Life.
The objection: the verse names one tree of life and gives it fruit and leaves, with no word of people.
The tree of Revelation 22 is the crossCaesarius of Arles, Exposition on the Apocalypse, 542
Caesarius of Arles, in his Exposition on the Apocalypse, takes the tree of Revelation 22 to be the cross. Bede, in his Commentary on Revelation, offers the glory of the cross or the Lord Christ and does not choose.
The objection: John calls it the tree of life, a name Scripture never gives the cross.
A third question, for the gardenGenesis 3:22
A third question belongs to the garden: whether the tree of the knowledge of good and evil gave knowledge, and what Genesis 3:22 means by one of Us. The Fall takes it up.
Books to Read Next
Two works a student reads next, each free to read.
On the Incarnation of the Word
Athanasius of Alexandria · fourth century
In its twenty-fifth chapter Athanasius asks why the Lord died on the cross.
READ IT AT CCEL →Commentary on the Bible
Adam Clarke · 1832
Its notes on Proverbs 3:18 and Revelation 22:2 read the tree of life.
READ HIS REVELATION NOTES →The Tree in the City
The Bible begins with a tree a man was barred from and ends with a tree whose leaves heal the nations. Between them stands the cross, which the apostles called a tree.
The text asks the reader to live by what was done on that tree.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- James Strong, Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 1890, entries H6086 and G3586, with the store's occurrence counts.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Deuteronomy 21:23.
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 25.
- Tertullian, Of Patience, on Galatians 3:13.
- Polycarp of Smyrna, Epistle to the Philippians 8.
- Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29, On the Son.
- Caesarius of Arles, Exposition on the Apocalypse, on Revelation 22:2.
- Bede, Explanation of the Apocalypse, on Revelation 22:2.
- Andreas of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse 22:2.
- Ambrose of Milan, Commentaries on the Twelve Davidic Psalms, on Psalm 1:3.
- Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 16.4.3.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Proverbs 3:18.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory, 1871, on Proverbs 3:18.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755, on Revelation 22:2.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on Revelation 22:2.
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory, 1871, on Revelation 22:2.
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