Mulberry Trees

beqaim. 2Sa 5:23-24; Septuagint translated "pear trees"; Royle "the gnat tree," Arabic shajrat al bak, a kind of poplar, or the aspen trembling at the slightest breath. The gentle (compare 1Ki 19:19.) "sound of a going in the tops" was the sign of God’s "going out before" David’s army. "Angels tread light, and He that can walk upon the clouds can, when He pleases, walk on the tops of the trees. Though thou see Him not, yet thou shalt hear Him, and faith shall be confirmed by hearing" (Matthew Henry). Abulfadl says baca is the Arabic name of a shrub like the balsam, but with longer leaves and larger rounder fruit, from which if a leaf be broken a white tearlike sap flows; whence the name comes, namely, from baaqah, to weep. In Psa 84:6, "who passing through the valley of Baka, (the Hebrew letter ’Aleph ( א ) final probably being the Hebrew letter He[h] ( ה )) make it a well," the sense is, though in a valley of weeping (where the only waters are those of tears), such as David passed through in his flight from Absalom (2Sa 15:30), saints make it a well of ever flowing comfort and salvation (Joh 4:14; Isa 12:3).

Mulberry Trees. Some of the best recent authorities advocate the aspen or balsam, a few species of which grow in Palestine. The "going" in the tree-tops, which was to be the sign that God went out before the host, 2Sa 5:23-24, may have been the rustle of these leaves, which are proverbial for then- readiness to tremble before the slightest breeze.

MULBERRY TREES (bĕkâ’îm, 2Sa 5:23 f., 1Ch 14:14 f., Psa 84:6 mg.).—These trees have on philological grounds been supposed to be a variety of balsam, and on grounds of appropriateness to the story (2Sa 5:23 f.) to be poplars, whose leaves readily quiver with the slightest breath of air. Their identity is, however, quite uncertain. Mulberries they cannot be; for though plentiful to-day in Palestine, and still more so in the Lebanon, these trees were introduced to the land later than OT times. See, however, Sycamine.

E. W. G. Masterman.

mul´ber-i, (בּכאים, b^ekhā’ı̄m; Septuagint ἄπιοι, ápioi, “pear trees” (2Sa 5:23; 1Ch 14:14, margin “balsam-trees”; Psa 84:6, the King James Version “Baca,” margin “mulberry trees,” the Revised Version (British and American) “weeping,” margin “balsam-trees”): According to Arabic writers the Baca tree is similar to the balsam (Balsamodendron opobalsamum), and grows near Mecca; no such tree is, however, known in Palestine The name may, in Hebrew, have been applied to some species of ACACIA (which see). The idea of “weeping” implied in the root, both in Hebrew and Arabic, may be explained by the exudation of gum. “The sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees” has been explained to refer to the quivering of the leaves of poplars, but there is not much to support this view (see POPLAR). The translation “mulberry trees” is, however, even more improbable, as this tree, though very plentiful today, had not been introduced into Palestine in Old Testament times.

Mulberry (μόρον, móron, (1 Macc 6:34)): The Syrians at Bathzacharias “to the end they might provoke the elephants to fight, they, shewed them the blood of grapes and mulberries.” This reference must be to the deep red juice of the black mulberry (Morus nigra), the tūt shāmi of Palestine, a variety cultivated all over the land’ for its luscious, juicy fruit. See SYCOMORE.