"The house of the forest of Lebanon (1 Kings 7:2; 10:17; 2 Chronicles 9:16 ) was probably Solomon's armoury, and was so called because the wood of its many pillars came from Lebanon, and they had the appearance of a forest. (See BAALBEC .)
Heb. horesh, denoting a thicket of trees, underwood, jungle, bushes, or trees entangled, and therefore affording a safe hiding-place. place. This word is rendered "forest" only in 2 Chronicles 27:4 . It is also rendered "wood", the "wood" in the "wilderness of Ziph," in which david concealed himself (1 Samuel 23:15 ), which lay south-east of Hebron. In Isaiah 17:19 this word is in Authorized Version rendered incorrectly "bough."
Heb. pardes, meaning an enclosed garden or plantation. Asaph is ( Nehemiah 2:8 ) called the "keeper of the king's forest." The same Hebrew word is used Ecclesiastes 2:5 , where it is rendered in the plural "orchards" (RSV, "parks"), and Song of Solomon 4 :: 13 , rendered "orchard" (RSV marg., "a paradise").
"The forest of the vintage" (Zechariah 11:2 , "inaccessible forest," or RSV "strong forest") is probably a figurative allusion to Jerusalem, or the verse may simply point to the devastation of the region referred to.
The forest is an image of unfruitfulness as contrasted with a cultivated field (Isaiah 29:17; 32:15; Jeremiah 26:18; Hosea 2:12 ). (Isaiah 10:19,33,34 ) likens the Assyrian host under Sennacherib (q.v.) to the trees of some huge forest, to be suddenly cut down by an unseen stroke.
Easton's Bible Dictionary was written by Matthew George Easton, who lived from 1823-1894. This Scottish Presbyterian's other significant literary achievements were his English translations of two of Franz Delitzsch's commentaries. The nearly 4,000 entries cover material from Aaron to Zuzims!Wikipedia
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