Almond
Plants and Trees in the Bible
The almond tree grows to around 4 meters (13 feet) tall. It loses its leaves in winter and then, before the new leaves appear in spring, a profusion of white or pink flowers appears. The flowers are quite flat, with oval petals. The fuzzy fruit, about the size of a date palm fruit, comes about ten weeks later. The seed (“nut” in English) is fifty percent oil, and can be eaten raw but is usually roasted.
Pictures
In the Bible
The Hebrew and Greek words for it, and every verse where each is used
לוּז luz · 1 verse
מְשֻׁקָּד meshuqad · 4 verses
שָׁקֵד shaqed · 4 verses
What it stands for
Three passages make reference to physical features of the almond tree. In we find the Hebrew word meshuqad (“almond-like”) referring to the shape of the almond blossom. The flat almond flower made a reasonable model for the lamp holders at the top of the branches of the lampstand in the Tabernacle.
The writer of uses the profusion of white blossoms on the almond tree as a symbol of old age. The comparison is of course to the white hair of the elders. FFB ’s comment that the almond tree is “a sign of the beauty of spring which does not bring joy to an old man” (page 89) ignores the gift of the poet.
In the author makes use of the similarity of the Hebrew name shaqed (“almond”) to the word shoqed (“watching” or “wakeful”) to emphasize that Yahweh is “watching” over Israel. Some commentators add to this that since the almond is the first of the trees to blossom in the spring—even before the leaves emerge—it was “waking up early,” and God, likewise, is an “early help” in time of trouble.
Places named “Luz” in indicate the value of almonds to the people of the land and the possibility that almond trees grew in the desert hills of Sinai, although they are not found there today.
More about it
The almond is one of a group of fruit-bearing trees (Prunus) that also includes plums, cherries, peaches, and apricots. There are fifteen species of wild almond in Iran, two wild species in Israel, and one cultivated one (Prunus dulcis, also called Amygdalus communis). They are plentiful now in the hills of Israel, and probably were so in Bible times, even in the hot, dry Negev.
Also in Domestic trees and shrubs
Sources
Plants and Trees in the Bible, Animals in the Bible and Human-made Things in the Bible © United Bible Societies, 2025 (adapted from Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible by Robert Koops, All Creatures Great and Small: Living Things in the Bible by Edward R. Hope, and The Works of Their Hands: Man-made Things in the Bible by Ray Pritz), CC BY-SA 4.0; adapted for eRhema