Isaiah 7:2

7:2 It was reported to the family ¹  of David, “Syria has allied with ²  Ephraim.” They and their people were emotionally shaken, just as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. ³ 

Isaiah 33:9

33:9 The land ⁴  dries up ⁵  and withers away;

the forest of Lebanon shrivels up ⁶  and decays.

Sharon ⁷  is like the desert; ⁸ 

Bashan and Carmel ⁹  are parched. ¹⁰ 

Daniel 4:14

4:14 He called out loudly ¹¹  as follows: ¹² 

‘Chop down the tree and lop off its branches!

Strip off its foliage

and scatter its fruit!

Let the animals flee from under it

and the birds from its branches!

Nahum 3:12

The Assyrian Defenses Will Fail

3:12 All your fortifications will be like fig trees ¹³  with first-ripe fruit: ¹⁴ 

If they are shaken, ¹⁵  their figs ¹⁶  will fall ¹⁷  into the mouth of the eater! ¹⁸ 

[7:2]  ¹ tn Heb “house.” In this context the “house of David” includes King Ahaz, his family, and the royal court. See also Jer 21:12; Zech 12:7-8, 10, 12, for a similar use of the phrase.

[7:2]  ² tn Heb “rests upon.” Most understand the verb as נוּחַ (nuakh, “rest”), but HALOT 685 s.v. II נחה proposes that this is a hapax legomenon which means “stand by.”

[7:2]  ³ tn Heb “and his heart shook and the heart of his people shook, like the shaking of the trees of the forest before the wind.” The singular pronoun “his” is collective, referring to the Davidic house/family. לֵבָב (levav, “heart”) here refers to the seat of the emotions.

[33:9]  ⁴ tn Or “earth” (KJV); NAB “the country.”

[33:9]  ⁵ tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. I אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism. See 24:4.

[33:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “Lebanon is ashamed.” The Hiphil is exhibitive, expressing the idea, “exhibits shame.” In this context the statement alludes to the withering of vegetation.

[33:9]  ⁷ sn Sharon was a fertile plain along the Mediterranean coast. See 35:2.

[33:9]  ⁸ tn Or “the Arabah” (NIV). See 35:1.

[33:9]  ⁹ sn Both of these areas were known for their trees and vegetation. See 2:13; 35:2.

[33:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “shake off [their leaves]” (so ASV, NRSV); NAB “are stripped bare.”

[4:14]  ¹¹ tn Aram “in strength.”

[4:14]  ¹² tn Aram “and thus he was saying.”

[3:12]  ¹³ sn Ironically, Sennacherib had recently planted fig trees along all the major avenues in Nineveh to help beautify the city, and had encouraged the citizens of Nineveh to eat from these fruit trees. How appropriate that Nineveh’s defenses would now be compared to fig trees whose fruit would be eaten by its enemies.

[3:12]  ¹⁴ sn This extended simile compares the siege of Nineveh with reapers shaking a tree to harvest the “first-ripe fruit.” Fruit that matured quickly and ripened early in the season dropped from the trees more easily than the later crop which developed more slowly (Isa 28:4). To harvest the later crop the worker had to climb the tree (sixteen to twenty feet tall) and pick the figs by hand from each branch. On the other hand, the fruit from the early harvest could be gathered quickly and with a minimum of effort by simply shaking the trunk of the tree (G. Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palestina, 1:378-80). The point of this simile is that Nineveh would fall easily and quickly.

[3:12]  ¹⁵ tn This conditional sentence expresses a real anticipated situation expected to occur in the future, rather than an unreal completely hypothetical situation. The particle אִם (’im, “if”) introduces real conditions (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 75, §453). The imperfect tense verb יִנּוֹעוּ (yinno’u, “they are shaken”) depicts a future-time action conceived as a real situation expected to occur (see Joüon 2:629 §167.c; IBHS 510-11 §31.6.1).

[3:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the first ripe fruit of the previous line, rendered here as “their figs”) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:12]  ¹⁷ tn The syntax of the concluding clause (apodosis) emphasizes that this action is expected and certain to occur. This clause is introduced by vav conjunction and the perfect tense verb וְנָפְלוּ (vÿnoflu, “they will fall”) which emphasizes the expected certainty of the action (see Joüon 2:627-33 §167; IBHS 526-29 §32.2.1).

[3:12]  ¹⁸ sn This is appropriate imagery and highly ironic. After defeating their enemies, the Assyrian kings often encouraged their troops to consume the fruit of the conquered city’s fruit trees.