Exodus 15:27. This tree is called in Hebrew tamar, from its straight upright, branchless growth, for which it seems more remarkable than any other tree; it sometimes rises to the height of a hundred feet.

The palm is one of the most beautiful trees of the vegetable kingdom. The stalks are generally full of rugged knots, which render it comparatively easy to climb to the top for the fruit, Song of Solomon 7:7,8. These projections are the vestiges of the decayed leaves; for the trunk is not solid like other trees, but its center is filled with pith, round which is a tough bark, full of strong fibers when young, which, as the tree grows old, hardens and becomes ligneous. To this bark the leaves are closely joined, which in the center rise erect, but after they are advanced above the sheath that surrounds them, they expand very wide on every side the stem, and as the older leaves decay, the stalk advances in height. With its ever verdant and graceful crown continually aspiring towards heaven, it is an apt image of the soul growing in grace, Psalms 92:12. The leaves, when the tree has grown to a size for bearing fruit, are six to eight feet long, are very broad when spread out, and are used for covering the tops of houses, and similar purposes.

The fruit, from which the palm is often called the date-tree, grows below the leaves in clusters sometimes weighing over fifteen pounds, and is of a sweet and agreeable taste. The diligent natives, says Mr. Gibbon, celebrate, either in verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, the branches or long leaf-stalks, the leaves, fibers, and fruit of the palm are skillfully applied. A considerable part of the inhabitants of Egypt, of Arabia, and Persia, subsist almost entirely on its fruit. They boast also of its medicinal virtues. Their camels feed upon the date stone. From the leaves they make couches, baskets, bags, mats, and brushes: from the branches or stalks, cages for their poultry, and fences for their gardens; from the fiber of the trunk, thread, ropes, and rigging; from the sap is prepared a spirituous liquor; and the body of the tree furnishes fuel: it is even said that from one variety of the palm-tree, the phoenix farinifera, meal has been extracted, which is found among the fibers of the trunk, and has been used for food.

Several parts of the Holy Land, no less than of Idumea, that lay contiguous to it, are described by the ancients to have abounded with date-trees. Judea particularly is typified in several coins of Vespasian by a desconsolate woman sitting under a palm-tree, with the inscription, JUDEA CAPTA. In Deuteronomy 34:3, Jericho is called the "city of palm-trees;" and several of these trees are still found in that vicinity; but in general they are now rare in Palestine. Palm wreaths, and branches waved in the air or strown on the road, are associated not only with the honors paid to ancient conquerors in the Grecian games and in war, but with the triumphant entry of the King of Zion into Jerusalem, John 12:12-13, and with his more glorious triumph with his people in heaven, Revelation 7:9.

(Heb. tamar), the date-palm characteristic of Palestine. It is described as "flourishing" (Psalms 92:12), tall (Cant 7:7), "upright" (Jeremiah 10:5). Its branches are a symbol of victory (Revelation 7:9). "Rising with slender stem 40 or 50, at times even 80, feet aloft, its only branches, the feathery, snow-like, pale-green fronds from 6 to 12 feet long, bending from its top, the palm attracts the eye wherever it is seen." The whole land of Palestine was called by the Greeks and Romans Phoenicia, i.e., "the land of palms." Tadmor in the desert was called by the Greeks and Romans Palmyra, i.e., "the city of palms." The finest specimens of this tree grew at Jericho (Deuteronomy 34:3) and Engedi and along the banks of the Jordan. Branches of the palm tree were carried at the feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:40). At our Lord's triumphal entrance into Jerusalem the crowds took palm branches, and went forth to meet him, crying, "Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matthew 21:8; John 12:13). (See DATE .)

(Heb. tamar ). Under this generic term many species are botanically included; but we have here only to do with the date palm, the Phoenix dactylifera of Linnaeus. While this tree was abundant generally in the Levant, it was regarded by the ancients as peculiarly characteristic of Palestine and the neighboring regions, though now it is rare. ("The palm tree frequently attains a height of eighty feet, but more commonly forty to fifty. It begins to bear fruit after it has been planted six or eight years, and continues to be productive for a century. Its trunk is straight, tall and unbroken, terminating in a crown of emerald-green plumes, like a diadem of gigantic ostrich-feathers; these leaves are frequently twenty feet in length, droop slightly at the ends, and whisper musically in the breeze. The palm is, in truth, a beautiful and most useful tree. Its fruit is the daily food of millions; its sap furnishes an agreeable wine; the fibres of the base of its leaves are woven into ropes and rigging; its tall stem supplies a valuable timber; its leaves are manufactured into brushes, mats, bags, couches and baskets. This one tree supplies almost all the wants of the Arab or Egyptian." --Bible Plants.) Many places are mentioned in the Bible as having connection with palm trees; Elim, where grew three score and ten palm trees, (Exodus 15:27) and Elath. ( 2:8) Jericho was the city of "palm trees." ( 31:3) Hazezon-tamar, "the felling of the palm tree," is clear in its derivation. There is also Tamar, "the palm." (Ezekiel 47:19) Bethany means the "house of dates." The word Phoenicia, which occurs twice in the New Testament -- (Acts 11:19; 15:3) --is in all probability derived from the Greek word for a palm. The, striking appearance of the tree, its uprightness and beauty, would naturally suggest the giving of Its name occasionally to women. (Genesis 38:6; 2 Samuel 13:1; 14:27) There is in the Psalms, (Psalms 92:12) the familiar comparison, "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree." which suggests a world of illustration whether respect be had to the orderly and regular aspect of the tree, its fruitfulness, the perpetual greenness of its foliage, or the height at which the foliage grows, as far as possible from earth and as near as possible to heaven. Perhaps no point is more worthy of mention, we wish to pursue the comparison, than the elasticity of the fibre of the palm and its determined growth upward even when loaded with weights. The passage in (Revelation 7:9) where the glorified of all nations are described as "clothed with white robes and palms in their hands," might seem to us a purely classical image; but palm branches were used by the Jews in token of victory and peace. (To these points of comparison may be added, its principle of growth: it is an endogen, and grows from within; its usefulness; the Syrians enumerating 360 different uses to which it may be put; and the statement that it bears its best fruit in old age. --ED.) It is curious that this tree, once so abundant in Judea, is now comparatively rare, except in the Philistine plain and in the old Phoenicia about Beyrout .