Cypress 柞樹 《聖經植物:第28筆》 九劃 屬性:柞樹 (賽44:14)指的應該是柏科的義大利柏木 (Cupressus sempervirens)。它是金字塔形的高大喬木,可長至30公尺高。莖圓形或方形,木質堅硬結實。葉暗綠色、鱗片狀,略帶香味。雄花棒狀,由黃綠變褐色。雌花為綠色的圓毬果,成簇於枝頂,成熟後為圓形灰褐色有光澤,外包6-12片鱗片。經意:柞樹的木材帶紅色,抗蟲且結實耐久,從前的人用來做建材與雕刻偶像 (賽44:14)。埃及人特別珍視此種樹,以它製造棺木放置木乃伊。一般學者認為挪亞用來造方舟的歌斐木也是這種木材 (創6:14)。產地:廣植於以色列、黎巴嫩和黑門山上。字源追溯:尖銳聲,歡呼,大聲,the ash tree (from its toughness)對等譯字:by the Lord LXX 一致譯字:by the Lord 欽定本譯:ash 和合本譯:松樹 經文出處:賽44:14他砍伐香柏樹,又取柞〔或譯:青桐〕樹和橡樹,在樹林中選定了一棵。他栽種松樹,得雨長養。賽55:13松樹長出,代替荊棘;番石榴長出,代替蒺藜。這要為耶和華留名,作為永遠的證據,不能剪除。
April 11 "What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light."(Matt. 10:27.) OUR Lord is constantly taking us into the dark, that He may tell us things. Into the dark of the shadowed home, where bereavement has drawn the blinds; into the dark of the lonely, desolate life, where some infirmity closes us in from the light and stir of life; into the dark of some crushing sorrow and disappointment. Then He tells us His secrets, great and wonderful, eternal and infinite; He causes the eye which has become dazzled by the glare of earth to behold the heavenly constellations; and the ear to detect the undertones of his voice, which is often drowned amid the tumult of earth's strident cries. But such revelations always imply a corresponding responsibility─"that speak ye in the light─that proclaim upon the housetops." We are not meant to always linger in the dark, or stay in the closet; presently we shall be summoned to take our place in the rush and storm of life; and when that moment comes, we are to speak and proclaim what we have learned. This gives a new meaning to suffering, the saddest element in which is often its apparent aimlessness. "How useless I am!" "What am I doing for the betterment of men?" "Wherefore this waste of the precious spikenard of my soul?" Such are the desperate laments of the sufferer. But God has a purpose in it all. He has withdrawn His child to the higher altitudes of fellowship, that he may hear God speaking face to face, and bear the message to his fellows at the mountain foot. Were the forty days wasted that Moses spent on the Mount, or the period spent at Horeb by Elijah, or the years spent in Arabia by Paul? There is no short cut to the life of faith, which is the allvital condition of a holy and victorious life. We must have periods of lonely meditation and fellowship with God. That our souls should have their mountains of fellowship, their valley of quiet rest beneath the shadow of a great rock, their nights beneath the stars, when darkness has veiled the material and silenced the stir of human like, and has opened the view of the infinite and eternal, is as indispensable as that our bodies should have food. Thus alone can the sense of God's presence become the fixed possession of the soul, enabling it to say repeatedly, with the Psalmist, "Thou art near, O God." ─F. B. Meyer.