ALVIN JOHNSON looks at where the walnut is mentioned in the Bible…
The egoz is believed to be the walnut. The walnut comes from the Juglans regia tree, more commonly known as the Persian walnut or English walnut.
A walnut tree PICTURE: Thesupermat (licensed under CC BY-SA 1.0)
The walnut is a tree which is widespread, being found in south eastern Europe all the way to northern India and south west China. It is a large tree, growing up to eight metres in height, with a large crown of leaves up to 20 metres in circumference. It has a trunk diameter of up to two metres.
The egoz is only mentioned once in the Bible, where it was grown in number (‘a grove’) for a large crop of nutritious edible nuts:
‘I went down to the grove of egoz (walnut) trees
to look at the new growth in the valley,
to see if the vines had budded
or the pomegranates were in bloom.’
– Song of Solomon 6:11
This is an edited excerpt from Alvin Johnson’s iBook ‘Biblical Flora’, 2017. The book is available for free download on iTunes. A teacher’s edition is also available for purchase.
