the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Encyclopedias
Box-Tree
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Box-tree (Isaiah 60:13; Isaiah 41:19). It is not very certain that the box-tree is really denoted by the Hebrew and so translated: but nothing more probable has been suggested, and it agrees well enough with the indications afforded by the texts in which the name occurs.
The box is a native of most parts of Europe. It grows well in England, as at Boxhill, etc. while that from the Levant is most valued in commerce, in consequence of its being highly esteemed by wood-engravers. Turkey box is yielded by Buxus Balearica, a species which is found in Minorca, Sardinia, and Corsica, and also in both European and Asiatic Turkey, and is imported from Constantinople, Smyrna, and the Black Sea. Box is also found on Mount Caucasus, and a species extends even to the Himalaya Mountains. It is much employed in the present day by the wood-engraver, the turner, carver, mathematical instrument maker, and the comb and flute maker.
The box-tree, being a native of mountainous regions, was peculiarly adapted to the calcareous formations of Mount Lebanon, and therefore likely to be brought from thence with the coniferous woods for the building of the temple, and was as well suited as the fir and the pine trees for changing the face of the desert.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Box-Tree'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/b/box-tree.html.
