cypress Summary and Overview

(Heb. tirzah, "hardness"), mentioned only in Isa. 44:14 (R.V., "holm tree"). The oldest Latin version translates this word by ilex, i.e., the evergreen oak, which may possibly have been the tree intended; but there is great probability that our Authorized Version is correct in rendering it "cypress." This tree grows abundantly on the mountains of Hermon. Its wood is hard and fragrant, and very durable. Its foliage is dark and gloomy. It is an evergreen (Cupressus sempervirens). "Throughout the East it is used as a funereal tree; and its dark, tall, waving plumes render it peculiarly appropriate among the tombs."

(Heb. tirzah). The Hebrew word is found only in #Isa 44:14| We are quite unable to assign any definite rendering to it. The true cypress is a native of the Taurus. The Hebrew word points to some tree with a hard grain, and this is all that can be positively said of it.

CY'PRESS . Isa 44:14. The Hebrew word indicates a tree with hard-grained wood, but there are objections to the true cypress, and there is no certainty what it was. It may have been the Syrian juniper, which grows wild upon Lebanon, as the cypress never does in the Holy Land. The latter tree (Cupressus sempervirens) is a tall evergreen, the wood of which is heavy, aromatic, and remarkably durable. Its foliage is dark and gloomy, its form close and pyramidal, and it is usually planted in the cemeteries of the East. Coffins were made of it in the East, and the mummy-cases of Egypt are found at this day of the cypress-wood. The timber has been known to suffer no decay by the lapse of 1100 years.

Isaiah 44:14; tirzah, from taaraz "to be hard." Sirach 24:13; Sirach 1:1-21. A large, coniferous, evergreen tree; the wood very durable, hard, and fragrant. The cypress, which is a native of Taurus, is now only found in lower levels of Syria. Since it seldom rots, it was used for idol statues. The juniper is found 7,000 ft. up Lebanon, but not at the top, which is 10,500 ft. high.