Onion
Plants and Trees in the Bible
The onion plant has hollow leaves and a hollow stem about 30 centimeters (1 foot) tall with a spherical head of flowers. The root is a round bulb made up of tightly packed layers of fleshy, edible tissue. It is sharp in taste, though the Egyptian variety was considered sweet.
Pictures
In the Bible
The Hebrew and Greek words for it, and every verse where each is used
בָּצָל batsal · 1 verse
What it stands for
Onions are cited with garlic and other tasty things from the life of Egypt that the Israelites longed for as they wandered in the Sinai Desert for forty years.
More about it
There is no doubt that the Hebrew word batsal refers to the ancestor of the Onion Allium cepa we know now. It may have been native to the Holy Land. Onions were known in Egypt as early as 3200 B.C. along with leeks and garlic. The Septuagint translates batsal as krommuon.
Also in Leafy vegetables
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