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Summary
- Lemons are not mentioned in the Bible; the earliest lemon remains outside Asia come from Rome, around the time of Christ, and none from the eastern Mediterranean in that period.
- The citron, an older relative of the lemon, grew in a Persian royal garden near Jerusalem in the fifth and fourth centuries BC.
- Jewish tradition reads the “goodly trees” of Leviticus 23:40 as the citron, and Jews were carrying citrons at the Feast of Tabernacles by the reign of King Alexander Jannaeus (102 to 76 BC).
- The “citron wood” of Revelation 18:12 in some Bibles is a fragrant North African wood, not the citrus fruit.
- The fruits the Bible does name include grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, almonds, nuts, apples, sycomore fruit and melons.
- At harvest Boaz invited Ruth, a poor foreigner, to dip her bread in the vinegar with his reapers.
- When Scripture speaks of sourness it reaches for sour grapes and vinegar, and on the cross Jesus received the vinegar before he said, “It is finished.”
Bibliography (Click to show)
- King James Version (public domain), quoted from BibleGateway: Genesis 43:11; Exodus 28:33–34; Leviticus 23:40; Numbers 11:5; 13:23; 17:8; Deuteronomy 8:2–3, 8, 10; Ruth 2:14; Nehemiah 8:15; Psalm 34:8; 69:21; Proverbs 10:26; Song of Solomon 2:3; 4:13; Jeremiah 31:29–30; Ezekiel 18:2–4; Amos 7:14; Micah 4:4; John 19:28–30; Revelation 18:12. Revelation 18:12 is also quoted from the New International Version.
- Dafna Langgut, “The Citrus Route Revealed: From Southeast Asia into the Mediterranean”, HortScience 52, no. 6 (2017): 814–822, American Society for Horticultural Science.
- Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 3, chapter 10, and book 13, chapter 13, translated by William Whiston, Project Gutenberg.
- Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, thuinos (Strong’s 2367), Bible Hub.
- “Apple; Apple-tree”, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), Bible Hub.
- BibleGateway keyword searches for “lemon” and “citron” in the KJV, NIV and ESV, BibleGateway.
- Louis Ginzberg, “Alexander Jannæus (Jonathan)”, Jewish Encyclopedia (1901–1906), JewishEncyclopedia.com.
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