Orange Is Not in the Bible — Neither the Colour Nor the Fruit

Orange is not in the Bible — not the colour and not the fruit. The word did not exist in English as a colour name until the sixteenth century, and the fruit reached the Mediterranean long after Scripture was written.

Why the colour is missing

English itself had no word for orange until the fruit arrived to supply one. Before that, the range was described as red or yellow, and Old English used a compound meaning yellow-red.

Biblical Hebrew is in the same position and more so. Its colour vocabulary is small, and the words tend to name materials and dyes rather than points on a spectrum: the blue is a particular dye, the purple another, the crimson a third made from an insect.

Asking what orange symbolises in Scripture is asking a question in a vocabulary the text does not have.

What sits where orange would

Two things, and both are objects rather than colours.

Carnelian. The first stone in the first row of the high priest’s breastpiece (Exodus 28:17) is rendered carnelian in most modern versions and sardius in the King James. It is a reddish-orange stone, and it reappears in the foundations of the city in Revelation 21:20.

The stones on that breastpiece each carried the name of a tribe, and the instruction about them is the point: whenever he entered the Holy Place, Aaron was to bear the names over his heart as a continuing memorial (Exodus 28:29). The value of the stones is never what matters. What was written on them is.

Fire. Where a modern writer would reach for orange, Scripture says fire — the bush that burns and is not consumed, the pillar by night, the tongues at Pentecost, the refiner’s fire of Malachi 3:2.

Fire in Scripture is presence and refining rather than destruction, which is not how the colour is usually used in devotional writing.

The pale horse, since it comes up

One colour word in Revelation is worth knowing about because translations vary so much.

The fourth horse in Revelation 6:8 is chloros in Greek — the root of chlorophyll — which covers a yellowish green. Translations render it pale, ashen, or pale green.

It is the colour of something that has stopped being alive, and the rider is named Death. The word is doing exact work and no English equivalent quite carries it.

What about the fruit?

Oranges are not in the Bible either. Citrus reached the Mediterranean from further east, late; the citron is the one type known in the ancient Near East, and it is not clearly identified anywhere in the Hebrew Bible.

The fruits that are there are figs, grapes, olives, pomegranates and dates — the seven species that describe the land in Deuteronomy 8:8.

Frequently asked

Is the colour orange in the Bible?

No. Neither Hebrew nor Greek has a word for it, and English had none until the fruit supplied one in the sixteenth century.

What is the nearest thing?

Carnelian, the reddish-orange stone first in the high priest’s breastpiece (Exodus 28:17) and among the city’s foundations in Revelation 21:20 — and fire, wherever a modern writer would use the colour.

Are oranges in the Bible?

No. Citrus reached the Mediterranean late. Deuteronomy 8:8 lists the seven species that describe the land: wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olive oil and honey.

What colour is the pale horse?

The Greek chloros covers a yellowish green — the colour of something no longer alive. Translations render it pale, ashen or pale green.