Grafting. Wild olive trees growing on hillsides were often subjected to grafting with cuttings from the cultivated productive trees so that they would produce good fruit. It would seem unusual, even unnatural, to graft a wild branch onto a cultivated tree; yet, that is what some farmers did in the first century. Paul referred to this unusual procedure in his illustration at Romans 11:17-24, in which he likened the Gentile Christians who became part of the ‘seed of Abraham’ to branches of a wild olive tree grafted into a cultivated tree to replace the unproductive branches that were broken off and that represented the rejected natural Jewish members removed from the symbolic tree for their lack of faith. (Ga 3:28, 29) This act, “contrary to nature,” emphasizes God’s undeserved kindness toward such Gentile believers, stresses the benefits resulting to them as branches of “a wild olive” in receiving of the “fatness” of the garden olive’s roots, and thus removes any basis for boasting on the part of these Gentile Christians.​—Compare Mt 3:10; Joh 15:1-10; see GRAFTING.

Figurative Use. The olive tree is used figuratively in the Bible as a symbol of fruitfulness, beauty, and dignity. (Ps 52:8; Jer 11:16; Ho 14:6) Its branches were among those used in the Festival of Booths. (Ne 8:15; Le 23:40) At Zechariah 4:3, 11-14 and Revelation 11:3, 4, olive trees are used as symbols of God’s anointed ones and witnesses.