Plants in the Bible - The Bible and literature
Jotham-Fable
One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves.
They said to the olive tree,
'Be our king.'
But the olive tree answered,
'Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and men
are honoured, to hold sway over the trees?'
Next, the trees said to the fig tree,
'Come and be our king.'
But the fig-tree replied,
'Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet,
to hold sway over the trees?'
Then the trees said to the vine,
'Come and be our king.'
But the vine answered,
'Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods
and men,
to hold sway over the trees?'
Finally all the trees said to the thornbush,
'Come and be our king.'
The thornbush said to the trees,
'If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and
take
refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out
of
the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!'
A fable is usually a short and fairly simple story designed to illustrate a moral lesson. The characters are often animals who exhibit human frailties. Fables throw light on social or political situations and criticize society.
The fable has it's origin in oral literature. The oldest known fables date back to the Sumerians, about 2000 BC. The early fables wanted to criticise but didn't want to give moral lessons.
In the Old Testament we exclusively meet fables with plants as characters such as the Jotham-Fable (Judges 9, 8-15) and the Joasch-Fable (2nd Kings 14,9).
T
he Jotham-Fable is part of the Abimelech-story.
Jotham, the youngest of 70 sons of Jerub-Baal (name of honour for the judge Gideon), told it the citizens of Sechem and Beth Millo on Mount Gerizim. Abimelech, Jotham's half-brother, wanted to be king of Israel. He gets all his brothers killed, Jotham was the only survivor.
Jotham lets trees speak, because in those days the king was understood as being a symbolic fruit-tree or tree of life as well as shelter and shade for his people.
In this Fable none of the three fruit-trees (persons who were suited to be king) were willing to take over the royal honours. However, of all trees the unsuitable thorn bush (Abimelech) accepts his election and poses as protector and to afford shade, two promises which he can't keep.
Jotham wanted to open his people's eyes and spoke critically against the kingdom and the candidate for king, who was domineering, unjust and unfair and wanted to come to power by any means, even murder.
[Martin Buber calls the Jotham-Fable "most powerfully anti-monarch poetry of world literature (Buber, M., 1964, Kingdom of God, in: work II, Munich, 562)]
