Psalm 92:12b

Psalm 92:12b

Growing like cedars

In Bible times, cedar wood was sought-after for a number of reasons. Obviously, the wood was very desirable, it had no knots in it and it was used to adorn the Temple and royal palaces. It was an expensive wood and was durable because it did not decay, and it was generally resistant to disease. A cedar can grow up to 120 feet and its branches spread wide at right angles to the trunk. The roots go down as deep as the branches go up and it is little surprise to learn that this was known as the “king of trees”, even its name means “firm or strong”.  By the way, there is a beautiful passage in Ezekiel 31:3-7 where Assyria is likened to a cedar tree that towers over the other nations of the earth.

So why Lebanon? Lebanon means “whiteness”, it comes from the Hebrew “lawban”, the same word that is used in Isaiah 1:18, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white “lawban” as snow.” Lebanon was renowned for its snow-capped mountains and the cedars grew prolifically on the mountain slopes.

How amazing to think that the righteous are seen as mighty trees who can only grow spiritually as much as their roots are embedded in God’s truth. The righteous cedars will not be consumed by disease or bugs, and they will not or be threatened by persecution. Sadly today, few of the cedars remain, like the church they have been chopped down and uprooted but their time will come again! Isaiah 41:19.

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