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Summary
- No, blueberries are not in the Bible, and Scripture gives them no spiritual meaning: the blueberry is a North American shrub, first farmed in the early 1900s.
- The King James Bible says “berries” only twice, in Isaiah 17:6 and James 3:12, and both times it means olives.
- God’s law told the farmer not to go back over his olive tree, because what stayed on the branches was “for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow” (Deuteronomy 24:20).
- Some modern Bibles also name a caper berry in Ecclesiastes 12:5 and a mulberry tree in Luke 17:6, where the King James Version says “desire” and “sycamine tree”.
- The Portuguese mirtilo, the Italian mirtillo and the French myrtille all mean “little myrtle”, and the myrtle is a Bible plant, cut for the booths of a feast in Nehemiah and carried in the name of Esther, an orphan, whose Hebrew name Hadassah means myrtle.
- The blueberry meanings found online are modern ideas; when the Bible speaks of fruit, it is usually speaking of what is in our hearts (Luke 6:44–45).
- In Isaiah, the few olives left on the bough are a picture of the few who remain, and in that day they will “look to his Maker” (Isaiah 17:7).
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture is quoted from the King James Version: Deuteronomy 24:20; 2 Samuel 5:24; Nehemiah 8:15; Esther 2:7; Ecclesiastes 12:1 and 12:5; Isaiah 17:6–7 and 55:13; Luke 6:44–45 and 17:5–6; James 3:10 and 3:12. Isaiah 17:1–5 and 41:19, Numbers 15:38–39 and Galatians 5:22–23 are cited. The count of “berries” is of whole words in the King James Version without the Apocrypha (31,102 verses), from Project Gutenberg’s text. Isaiah 17:6, Ecclesiastes 12:5, 2 Samuel 5:23, Luke 17:6 and James 3:12 were compared in the English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible, New International Version and New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition on BibleGateway. In the table, ESV is the English Standard Version, NASB the New American Standard Bible, NIV the New International Version and NRSVue the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.
- Brown–Driver–Briggs Hebrew lexicon and Strong’s concordance, via Bible Hub: gargar, “berry”; abiyyonah, “caper-berry”; baka, “balsam-tree”; hadas, “myrtle”; Hadassah.
- Thayer’s Greek lexicon and Strong’s concordance, via Bible Hub: sykaminos, “sycamine”; elaia, “olive”.
- North Carolina State University Extension, Vaccinium corymbosum (highbush blueberry), Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox.
- United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, “Historic Collection at NAL Gives Insight into Blueberry’s Domestication”, 16 June 2011.
- Flora of Israel Online, Ericaceae (heath family) and Myrtus communis, common myrtle.
- Virginia Tech Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Myrtus communis fact sheet.
- Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales, “myrtille”, étymologie (Trésor de la langue française); Treccani, “mirtillo”, Vocabolario on line; Priberam, “mirtilo”, Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa; Dictionary.com, “myrtle” (word origin: medieval Latin myrtillus, myrtus with the diminutive -illus).
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