TAMARISK

[Heb., ʼeʹshel].

The Hebrew name of this tree is evidently related to the Arabic ʼathl and the Aramaic ʼath·laʼʹ, which identify one type of tamarisk tree. The tamarisk grows as a tree or shrub. Though its trunk is gnarled, the branches are often wandlike, giving the tree a feathery appearance. The evergreen leaves are tiny, scalelike, and pressed close to the branches, so they lose very little moisture by transpiration, enabling the trees to live in desert regions and even on sand dunes. In spring the tree blossoms with spikes of tiny pink or white flowers, which give welcome color to otherwise barren regions. Salt-loving tamarisks will often grow very near the ocean and on salt marshes. Abundant tamarisks along the banks of the Jordan form junglelike thickets that are the habitat of wild animals, and in Bible times they may have helped compose the “proud thickets along the Jordan” where lions once found cover.—Jer. 49:19; Zech. 11:3.

Though the tamarisk is generally shrub-size, W. Corswant’s Dictionary of Life in Bible Times (p. 269) states that in Egypt, Palestine and Syria the tree can attain remarkable proportions and become of great height. Abraham is recorded as having planted one at Beer-sheba (Gen. 21:33), King Saul sat in the shade of a tamarisk at Gibeon (1 Sam. 22:6), and his bones and those of his sons were buried under a large tamarisk tree in Jabesh-gilead.—1 Sam. 31:13; compare 1 Chronicles 10:12, where the Hebrew word for “big tree” (ʼe·lahʹ) is used.

Dr. Joseph Weitz, a noted authority on reforestation in Israel, said: “The first tree Abraham put in the soil of Beersheba was a tamarisk. Following his lead, four years ago we put out two million in the same area. Abraham was right. The tamarisk is one of the few trees we have found that thrives in the south where yearly rainfall is less than six inches.”—Reader’s Digest, March 1954, pp. 27, 30.

One type of tamarisk (Tamarix mannifera), when pierced by a scale insect, exudes drops of honeylike sap that are gathered and sold to pilgrims in some places as “manna.” This has no relation, however, to the manna provided for Israel in the wilderness, since such true manna was miraculously provided and gathered from the ground.—Ex. 16:13-15.