Ecclesiastes 2:6Isaiah 44:14Jeremiah 5:6Micah 5:82 Samuel 18:6,8Joshua 17:15,18Psalm 132:61 Samuel 22:52 Kings 2:23,241 Samuel 14:251 Kings 4:332 Kings 19:23Hosea 14:5,6

"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.