1 Kings 4:33
33 And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.
The Tree Of The Lord
The cedar that is in Lebanon. 1 Kings 4:33.
What is the oldest living thing in the world? It isn't a human being, although there are plenty centenarians that is, people a hundred years old and over alive today. It isn't a bird, although the crow, the eagle, and the swan are known to live to a hundred. It isn't a land animal, although the tortoise is said to reach the mature age of three hundred and fifty. It isn't a sea animal, although scientists tell us that the whale may arrive at the tremendous total of five hundred years and more.
No, if you want to see the oldest living thing in the world you have to go to the vegetable kingdom. Among the trees you will find the longest livers known. And of long-lived trees perhaps the longest lived is the cedar. There are cedars 800 years old for certain, and others which are suspected to be nearly 2000 years of age. That is to say, they were young trees when Christ came to earth.
We have cedars in this country, and we think them fine trees, but they are poor specimens compared with the cedar of the text, for the cedars of Lebanon were noted the world over for size and height and beauty.
As perhaps you know, the cedar belongs to the family of conifer or cone-bearing trees. The cedar is a kind of pine. It has long narrow needle-like leaves which grow on the branches in tufts, very much like the tufts of a larch. But the cedar's leaves are dark green, and they do not drop off in winter as our larch needles do. They remain on the tree for about four years and they fall off by degrees, so that the tree is always green. The branches are broad and spreading, and the Bible tells us of the dense shade that they give only the Bible calls it by a more poetical name, it speaks of the cedar's “shadowing shroud.”
The Bible calls the cedar “the glory of Lebanon,” and in Old Testament days very likely the whole of the lower slopes of the Lebanon range were covered with these majestic giants. But today the cedars of Lebanon are fewer and farther between. They grow in groves, mostly on the western slopes. Perhaps those who hewed down the cedars for the building of Solomon's temple and palace are responsible. Perhaps the Arabs through the ages have been too anxious for firewood. At any rate the cedars are not so plentiful as they once were.
The cedar is not only a magnificent tree while it is growing, it is a magnificent tree when it is cut down. Its wood is strong and sound and fine, and it takes a high polish. It resists dry rot and the inroad of insects. There are no little worm-holes, such as you often see in old furniture, to be found in cedar wood. It is fragrant too. The resin in it gives it a delightful smell which is health-giving and keeps away moths. That is why furs and woolen articles are packed away in drawers made of cedar wood, or have chips of cedar laid away among them. If you want to know what the “smell of Lebanon” is like, take a sniff of the polish that is used to saturate an O-Cedar mop. That is cedar oil.
Besides being strong and fine and fragrant, cedar wood is lasting. In a certain old Greek temple the cedar beams are said to have lasted 1178 years. And we know in our days that the cedar-wood snake fences which the earliest settlers in Canada put up are in many cases as fresh today as the day they were erected.
The Bible looks upon the cedar as the king of trees, just as we look upon the lion as the king of beasts. It speaks of the cedar as the “tree of the Lord.” The Hebrews, when they saw anything in nature specially grand or beautiful, always said, “It is the Lord's.” Strangely enough, the cedar of Lebanon's relation, the cedar of the Himalayas, is called by the natives of India the “deodar,” that is, the “tree of God.”
There is one thing more I want you to notice about the cedar, and it is that the righteous, the good people, are compared to the cedar. The psalmist who said it was paying good people the highest compliment he could think of when he said they would grow like a cedar in Lebanon. He meant that their characters would be as strong and splendid as those great mountain trees.
Now, the writer of the Psalm might have said even more than he did about good people being like cedars, for they are like them in more ways than in having strong characters. They are like them because they are sound all through; there is no bad wood in their composition. And they are fine as well as strong. Their hearts are gentle and courteous. They are fragrant too. Wherever they go the world is sweeter for their presence. Evil cannot touch them as the worms cannot live in the cedar wood, and they keep others from evil as the cedar wood preserves the fur from moths. Last, but not least, they live not for a thousand years or so, but for ever. The Arabs say of the cedar, “It is immortal.” The good man or woman, the true “tree of the Lord,” is more truly immortal than any cedar.