boards of Cedar, both the floor of the house, and the walls of the ceiling: and he covered them on the
inside with wood, and covered the floor of the house with planks of Fir. And he built twenty cubits on
the sides of the house, both the floor and the walls with boards of Cedar: he even built them for it within,
even for the oracle, even for the most holy place. And the house, that is, the temple before it, was forty
cubits long. And the Cedar of the house within was carved with knops and open flowers: all was Cedar;
there was no stone seen. And the oracle he prepared in the house within, to set there the ark of the
covenant of the Lord. And the oracle in the fore-part was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in
breadth, and twenty cubits in the height thereof: and he overlaid it with pure gold; and so covered the
altar which was of Cedar And he built the inner court with three rows of hewed stone, and a row
of Cedar beams."
The house of the Lord was finished in seven years, but Solomon built a great deal more than it of
Cedar. He built a house for himself, (i Kings vii. i) "But Solomon was building his own house
thirteen years." Next (ver. 2), " He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon; the length thereof was
an hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits upon four rows
of Cedar pillars with Cedar beams upon the pillars. And it was covered with Cedar above upon the
beams, that lay on forty-five pillars, fifteen in a row." It was of this palace that Josephus says that nothing
surprised Nicaulis, Queen of Egypt and ^Ethiopia (the same that is called in Scripture the Queen of
Sheba), when she came to Jerusalem to see Solomon, as the beauty and splendour of one of the halls of
this palace, which was enriched by 200 massive golden bucklers, each of the weight of 600 shekels.
All this building work extended over a period of upwards of twenty years (1 Kings ix. 10). We have
seen that the house of the Lord took seven years, and Solomon's own house, which was not begun until
the other was finished, took thirteen years.
But although these edifices were the most magnificent, and those in which doubtless the greatest
consumption of Cedar took place, this was still a very small part of the building done by Solomon. In
addition to the works above mentioned, Solomon built a wall round Jerusalem, and the city of Millo and
Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer, and Beth-horon the Nether, and Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness,
and " all the cities of store that Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and
that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion"
(1 Kings ix. 19). He also built a navy in Eziongeber, on the shore of the Red Sea (1 Kings ix. 26).
There must also have been much more building in Jerusalem; for we are told in 1 Kings x. 27 (and
in almost the same words in 2 Chron. i. 15, and ix. 27), that " the King made silver to be in Jerusalem as
stones, and Cedars made he to be as the Sycamore trees that are in the vale for abundance." The true
reading of this passage, we think, is, that by his importations of Cedar he made it so common as to be as
plentiful as the Sycamore tree (the ordinary wood of the country). It is not, however, so taken by Josephus.
In repeating the account of Solomon's buildings, which is obviously a copy or paraphrase of the Bible
account, he says, " And so multiplied Cedar trees in the plains of Judea, which did not grow there before,
that they were like the multitude of common Sycamore trees." (Whiston's " Works of Josephus," p. 336.)
An interpretation which Loiseleur again carries still further from the simple account given in the Bible:
" Josephus says that Solomon, being desirous that his kingdom should be abundantly supplied with wood,
caused so many Cedars to be planted in the plains of Judea, where there had been none before, that they
became as common as Mulberries." (" Histoire du Cedre," Ann. Agr. Franc., 1837, p. 365.) It appears
plain to us that this is not what is meant in the Bible, and not less so that, if Solomon had tried the
experiment of growing the Cedars in the plains of Judea, it would have been a failure. Cedars will not
grow there.
Notwithstanding the vast consumption of Cedars during Hiram's reign, it would appear that plenty
still remained, for the next allusion to them in the Bible after Solomon's time, is in the threat by
Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, in the days of Hezekiah (2 Kings xix. 23, and in almost the same
words
words in Isaiah xxxvii. 24), to cut down the tall Cedar trees of Lebanon. Sennacherib obviously knew
that Lebanon was not within the territory of Hezekiah ; for, after threatening its destruction, he next goes
on to say he would enter into Hezekiah's borders—i.e., his own territory. Still, knowing that Lebanon
was the source from which a favourite magnificence of the kings of Judah was drawn, he sought to intimidate
him by threatening to annihilate it.
It is with reference to these invasions of the Assyrians that Isaiah prophesies (Isaiah ix. 10), " The
bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the Sycamores are cut down, but we will
change them into Cedars;" and in Isaiah xiv. 7, 8, " The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break
forth into singing. Yea, the Fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the Cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou [i.e.,
the King of Babylon] art laid down, no feller is come up against us." This would indicate that the
Assyrians had at some time or other actually carried Sennacherib's threat into execution, and made havoc
in the forests of Lebanon. Mr. Layard thinks that he has not only found a passage in the cuneiform
inscriptions at Nineveh, in which the builder of the edifice narrates that he had brought Cedars to it from
the forests of Lebanon, but also an actual portion of one of the beams itself. We shall have to consider
the weight to be attached to Mr. Layard's discovery by and by, when we come to speak of the growth
and age of the tree. In the meantime we shall only say that we are sceptical both as to the timber found
by him being Cedar from Lebanon, and, generally, as to the dependence to be placed on the attempts to
decipher these cuneiform inscriptions; and therefore we do not attach any weight to the confirmation
offered by Mr. Layard; but those who are free from such doubts will of course accept it as additional
evidence of the cause of the present scarcity in Lebanon of this once plentiful tree.
The last historical reference to the Cedar in the Bible occurs in Ezra, where an account is given of
the rebuilding of Jerusalem by Cyrus (Ezra iii. 7).
The remainder of the allusions to the Cedar are poetical; and although they are not only of great
beauty, but furnish much matter for interesting speculation and reference, scarcely come within the scope of
a botanical work.
It is very generally taken for granted that the Psalms are full of illustrations drawn from the Cedar;
and yet, on looking for them, we find only a few brief allusions. A more important point, on which we
desire to correct the general belief, is the notion which some persons have that the Cedar of the Lebanon is
not the Cedar of the Bible, or that a large proportion of the references to it properly belong to some other
tree. But we think there cannot be a better correction for anything that is excessive or erroneous in that
idea, nor a better means of discriminating the references to the true Cedar of Lebanon from those to
something else also bearing the name of El'Arz, than a complete survey of the whole references placed in
one view, and as nearly as possible in chronological order. This we have endeavoured to give, and we do
not think any one can rise from the consecutive perusal of these passages without feeling that Hiram's
gift of Cedars to David, and every quotation subsequent to the date thereof, all relate to the same tree;
and that that tree was our Cedar. Those mentioned previously in Leviticus and Numbers equally plainly
refer to something else.
The Cedar is mentioned nowhere in the New Testament.
Passing from the Scriptural allusions, it may not be uninteresting to run over the notices which we have
met with of the size and the numbers of the Cedars on Lebanon, given at different periods by various
authors. These carry us back for at least three hundred years, and give a tolerably connected view of their
history and state during that time.
The most antient author who has spoken of the Cedars of Lebanon, appears to have been the Father
Nicole le Huen, a French priest, who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1487. In his " Grand Voyage
de Jerusalem," he speaks of Mount Lebanon as being remarkable for "the very high Cedars and other
verdant trees in great multitude and marvellous procerity;" and breaks out into admiration of the amenity
and beauty of the mountains of Lebanon, and of their products, which he enumerates, concluding-" Item
est